The Rear View Mirror


	The original Magicab in 1950.

The original Magicab featured a bubble canopy taken from a WWII plane and had no doors. Passengers climbed in over the trunk, but the car was fast and it turned heads wherever it went.

Vernon Sears built the original Magicab, with the help of his father Ray Sears, in Tulsa, Oklahoma helped. The customized car took 100s of hours to construct, and was one-of-a-kind. Customizing cars was uncommon in 1950 and this concept car was an outstanding early example of what became a hot trend with chopped street rods later in the Fifties and Sixties.


	Vernon and his wife Eleanor riding in an old car.


	Eleanor, the first girl member of Car Culture Club™, in front of her father's Pierce Arrow

The original Magicab was built from a Ford chassis, and had a powerful motor with dual chromed carburetors punched through the hood. Here is an award for the Searson car...

Two years after the original Magicab was built, Richard Nixon gave his famous Checkers speech, September 23, 1952.
(excerpts)

"I am sure you have read the charges, and you have heard it, that I, Senator Nixon, took $18,000 from a group of my supporters. Now, was that wrong? And let me say that it was wrong. "

"And to answer those questions let me say this: not a cent of the $18,000 or any other money of that type ever went to me for personal use. Every penny of it was used to pay for political expenses..."

"One other thing I should probably tell you, because if I don't they will probably be saying this about me, too. We did get something, a gift, after the election...it was a little cocker spaniel dog, in a crate that he (a supporter) had sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted, and our little girl Tricia, the six year old, named it Checkers.

And you know, the kids, like all kids, loved the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it."

Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans) earned national fame in 1960 with "The Twist," an instant classic.

The Twist
Come on baby; let's do the twist
Come on baby, let's do the twist
Take me by my little hand and go like this
Ee-oh twist baby baby twist
Oooh-yeah just like this
Come on little miss and do the twist

My daddy is sleepin' and mama ain't around
Yeah daddy is sleepin' and mama ain't around
We're gonna twisty twisty twisty
'til we burn the house down
Come on and twist yeah baby twist
Oooh-yeah just like this
Come on little miss and do the twist

Yeah you should see my little sis
You should see my my little sis
She really knows how to rock
She knows how to twist
Come on and twist yeah baby twist
Oooh-yeah just like this
Come on little miss and do the twist
Yeah rock on now
Yeah twist on now
Twist

Exchequer (pronounced x-CHECKER)...from medieval England to today, the department or office charged with the receipt and care of the national revenue.

Checker Motors Company is still in business as auto parts maker but stopped making Checker automobiles in 1982 after 60 years, based in Kalamazoo, MI. Checkers have become a cult classic for timeless design, roominess, and reliability.