The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 66

Sunday, November 6, 1988 Part II 17 Checker Car Buffs Bid Sad Farewell to Sherman carcass? Bassett isn't sure. She's thinking about resurrecting it, rebuilding the body and replacing the motor, though Marchant said the cost would bo considerably higher than $20,000. One thing is certain, she said. "Somehow or other, I'll own a Checker car." ukulele and sang a 1930 song about Checker cabsi "Why be slammed, packed or Jammed for no reason, cause or rhyme. Just call a Checker, old man." Bassett burled Sherman's Checker emblem in her back yard, promising to adorn the grave site with a brass plaque.

The charred By EDMUND NEWTON, Times Writer UNUSUAL OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE EXCLUSIVE DESIGNER FURNISHINGS USED FOR DISPLAY ONLY! SOFAS AND LOVESEATS I Eli Is. I 'I'm sorry, it's too far Bassett recalled. Firefighters came at last and doused the flames. "One fireman with a crowbar was getting ready to pop the trunk," Bassett said, "and I yelled, 'Don't do that, you jerk, I've got the Looking back, I feel I was acting like a real idiot, but I was hysterical." A post-mortem showed that Sherman's water pump had conked out. Heat from the engine had touched off sparks, Bassett said.

Sherman was "totally totaled," said Marchant, pointing to the bowed roof, warped door handles and melted window frames. "She's lucky she got out when she did," the appraiser said, "There could have been serious injury or death." Marchant used his eulogy both to pay tribute to Southern California car enthusiasts and to claim a deep emotional link between automobile and driver. "The car does become part of ourselves," he said-Then, Norman Rhinehart, the bereaved owner's father, played a ing suddenness. She had been driving home from San Francisco, said Bassett, a 40-year-old housewife who was dressed for the funeral in a two-piece Victorian silk widow's gown, complete with a black pillbox hat and an ostrich feather. Near Sunland, she noticed smoke coming from under the hood, and she pulled over to a call box.

Sherman began to burn. "I was a little hysterical hysterical," Bassett said. "I kept yelling, 'My car! My Bassett had felt especially maternal toward Sherman, she said. She had ordered the car straight from the factory in Kalamazoo, where it rolled off the production line on Valentine's Day, 1981. The rest is mostly a blur, Bassett said.

A passing motorist helped her remove some belongings from the car, then restrained her when she headed impulsively back to the burning car. A trucker stopped and gave the flaming Sherman a few squirts from his fire extinguisher. "He said, FROM Viluu Up to 13.000 IICTIONAL IITI. CHAIBI The deceased was a car named Sherman. Its lifeless body sat in Kathryn Bassett's back yard in Pasadena, a pathetic mass of charred metal and paint.

Its interior was a jumble of blackened upholstery, which the mourners gloomily assessed through punched-out windows. "Ooh, what happened to little Sherman?" one man sighed. The gutted motor? Too ghastly to contemplate. This would be a "closed hood ceremony," said Ken Marchant, the automobile appraiser who delivered the eulogy for the car at a Saturday morning "funeral" last month. Fifteen people, most of them members of Checker Car Club of America, gathered in the back yard around Sherman, a 7-year-old light blue Checker car, its odometer frozen at 116,550 miles, as Bassett recounted once more the sad story of Sherman's demise in September on the Foothill Freeway.

The defunct car was bedecked with flowers one bouquet bore the words, "R.I.P. Sherman" and several mourners shed tears. When it comes to their cars, Checker owners are an emotional bunch. They see human characteristics under those hefty fenders. "When we had a new engine put in last year, we referred to it as a heart transplant," said Lesley Allen of Covina, whose family owns three of the big, square, four-door cars.

Built Like a Tank Bassett said she had named her car Sherman because it was built like a tank. What kind of personality did the car have? "Reliable," Bassett said. "We played good Samaritan a couple of times, pushing people stalled in intersections with those big, heavy bumpers." Reliable, maybe. But a vanishing breed. The Checker Motors most of whose cars became taxis, went out of business in 1982.

The dwindling supply worries the 70 or so California Checker owners who belong to the 670-member national club. "You get a ding on your fender and it's drastic," Allen said. "You're not going to go to an average junkyard and find a Checker fend-er. Bassett's car went with depress- JjsC iiukuumi, uininw nwume, MANY UNIAUI ACCIISORIII .0.3 Open Sat. Sun.

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Christmas arrangements for home or corporate gifts. for information leading to the conviction of those who used the explosive charge to kill Bobo. Jerye Mooney, the Southern California coordinator for the group, called Bobo's killing a "cruel act," and said her group has advertised the reward by putting posters up around Redondo Beach. Bruno was a familiar visitor for the seven harbor patrol officers, who were clearly upset by his killing. "There is just no excuse for this," one officer said.

Several said they thought the sea lion was going to recover. Marine life specialists were called to help, but no one could capture him. Suspects in 1 Killing Sautter said he has some suspects in the killing of Bobo, and hopes to have enough evidence to file charges within this week. But Sautter said finding Bruno's killer will be more difficult since the shooting took place almost 2 months ago. "I wish I could be optimistic at this time, but I'm not," he said.

"There are no leads in Bruno's case." Because of the warm and consistent weather at South Bay beaches, many sea lions make the area their permanent home, he said. Some, like Bruno and Bobo, have stayed around the same area for so long that residents have become familiar with them. "Both of these animals that died these past 3 weeks were basically harbor pets," he said. Bruno, the California sea lion that made the Redondo Beach Harbor Patrol's dock his home for the past 2 years, died last week of two gunshot wounds suffered about 2 months ago, officials said. Bruno is the second sea lion in recent weeks to be killed at King Harbor.

The other one, which boaters in the marina called Bobo, was killed when it was fed an explosive device hidden inside a mackerel, Harbor Master Wayne Sankey disclosed last week. "He died instantly from internal bleeding," Sankey said. The National Marine Fisheries Service is investigating the killings. Maliciously killing a sea lion is a federal misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $20,000 and up to a year in jail, said Ray Sautter of the federal agency. Bruno, a 300-pound sea lion believed to be 3 to 4 years old, was found floating in King Harbor Oct.

30. He was wounded twice in the right side by small-caliber bullets. 'Some Sick Individuals' "It was just some sick individuals" who did this, Sankey said. Sea lions sometimes interfere with fishermen, he said, but they are easily scared away. It is unlikely that the same person killed both sea lions, he added, noting the incidents occurred more than a month apart and different weapons were used.

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