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          This is a question that sometimes is asked at book signings. People seem to think it odd that since the series is set in the Motor City the principal character, Mulheisen, doesn’t drive some kind of typical or even exceptional Detroit Iron. I’m glad they ask, because it means my nomination of this vehicle has fulfilled its purpose. It’s one of those character points. When you’re creating a character, especially such an important one, you have to give serious thought to just about every facet of his or her preferences. How does he dress? Does he smoke? Where does he live? What kind of music does he like? What sports team does he root for? Does he wear a watch and what kind? Some of these things can change over the life of the series and that, in itself, can constitute part of the story. A car is important -- especially in Detroit.

          For some reason, I got it into my head that Mulheisen was not particularly interested in cars. That makes him unusual in Detroit, where every kid grows up knowing just about everything about the new models, the old models, the companies that make them. In my new book, LA DONNA DETROIT, there is an extended disquisition on this subject, how for many kids their loyalty can be determined for life by where their father, mother, older siblings, uncles and aunts, are employed. Some families are Ford families, some General Motors, or more specifically, Pontiac folks. My dad, for instance, worked for Pontiac for many years, but he never owned one. He liked Buicks. But even before that, he had a certain loyalty for Chrysler products, because he spent his first twelve years in the industry working first for Plymouth, and later at Dodge Main. Earlier, on this page, I’ve commented on how bizarre it was for him to buy a Volkswagen Jetta when I repaid him for his gift to me of a Bug.

          Mulheisen is an independent sort of guy, readers will surely have noticed. One manifestation of it is his choice of a Checker. He’s also not the kind of flashy guy who would own, say, a Corvette. And yet he has some loyalty to American products, if not Detroit products. He’s critical of the auto industry, the Big Three, anyway. He’s a union loyalist and the union has not always loved their employers. The Checker, as we all know -- we’ve all ridden in those taxicabs -- is a big, clunky, dependable workhorse of a car. It was made for many years in Kalamazoo. This choice, I thought, was perfect for Mulheisen. A psychologist might say it was his way of saying that cars aren’t as important as we’re led to think by the ad agencies. What is important is dependable transportation. One of my chief criticisms of the American auto industry, and by implication, Mulheisen’s as well, is that the Big Three long ago made a decision to ignore dependability in favor of things like fins and grill work. They bought in completely to the notion of programmed obsolescence. I think there is room in general automotive production for flash and filigree, but it ought properly to be confined to a handful of models like the Corvette. As a matter of fact, they’ve even betrayed that concept by not making the `Vette as competitive and avant-garde a vehicle as it could have been. In their interest in having every car express as wide an appeal as possible they’ve made the family car into something that vaguely aspires to sportiness, while still being a staid sedan; at the same time, they’ve tried to dull down the cars that should be the show horses, so that they could still, in a pinch, be considered possible purchases by the otherwise unadventurous. And they’ve overloaded these race horses with luxury gear, so that they can’t really be sports cars.

         The Checker is just a car. Heavy, more or less indestructible, boxy, roomy, unattractive in a conventional sense. And yet, such is the perverse nature of humans, there are Checker clubs. There are at least two websites devoted to the stately, unprepossessing Checker. And it has an amusing history. Morris Markin, the man who created the Checker was a Russian immigrant tailor. He eventually started a factory that made pants for the military and he made money in World War I. Mindful of how he had started by borrowing money privately, he loaned money to people who were similarly trying to make a go of it as manufacturers in America. One of them was an automotive engineer named Lomborg. Unfortunately, Lomborg was unable to get his business going and he returned to Markin for more help. Instead, Markin bought him out. Evidently, he saw the way the industry was going and saw that there was an unexploited niche. He also bought out two other failing automotive enterprises, Oakland Motors and Dort body. He started building the Checker in Kalamazoo and he succeeded. The business flourished until well after Markin’s death in 1970. The last Checker was built in 1982, when the business failed for a variety of reasons, not excluding an old, out-moded plant.

     It was always a good, reliable car. Some folks, including Mulheisen, still think very highly of it. Nowadays, Mul’s car has a Chevy V-8 engine and running gear. Here’s a picture of a 1972 Marathon that looks much like Mul’s car.

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