As we head to the future, a link to the past

DeSoto Page!

While looking for articles on the latest goings on at the Taxi and Limousine Commission in reference to their search for the taxi of tomorrow, I found myself at this treasure trove of history from DeSoto. The page goes in detail about how DeSoto came to be a New York Taxicab and thus, an american taxi, and thus an american icon before the Checker Marathon. Pictures on the left, words on the right, It's fantastic, seeing all of the stuff they equipped these cars with, and it's very timely too, as these were purpose built vehicles, taken from the factory and re-engineered to some degree to meet the demands of customers, drivers, taxi-companies, and the regulatory board, which at that time was the hack bureau of the New York Police Department.

DeSoto Page!

Old Taxis- Slideshows

Slide Set A-

Set A is a collection of images of former New York City Cabs and the representations of older taxis in movies, television, and the media hype. Pictures were found all over the internet.

The sources for this set are listed on previous blog posts with the label Old Taxis

Slide Set B:

Set B is a collection of pictures Old taxis that could have been used in New York City.

These Pictures were all found at www.Flickr.com.

Slide Set C:

Set C is a set of my own shots of N.Y.C. taxis that are no longer in service:

Happy New Year

I'm not sure if I'm going to have the energy to post the journal blog from last week today, so I'll leave you with these pictures I found on the web via Wired New York. So find a tear in your eye and fondly remember the old taxicabs, et-cetera.

Midtown- W. 42nd Street and Madison Avenue -1940's?

Notice the Avenue runs both ways. Up until around 1980 nearly every street ran both ways, but now nearly all the Avenues in Manhattan and many more across the city travel in one direction.

Downtown- ? -1960's?

Shiny garbage can, never been hit yet by blunt force trauma. The old sign-age with a bit more life.

More old Taxis (part 2: Fords)

Oops I forgot to post the old pictures of Ford taxis in movies. So again from the site IMCDB.org, the Ford in NYC taxis from the 70's to the 90's

73' Ford Custom 500

"Taxi Driver"

75' Ford Ltd

"Nine and a Half Weeks"

79' Ford Ltd Crown Victoria

"Night On Earth"

90' Ford Crown Victoria

"As Good As It Gets"

92' Ford Crown Victoria

"Thirteen Going On Thirty"

More old Taxis

Alright bare with me here, I can't stop surfing the internet finding examples of old New York taxis. I promise this will be my last post of old taxis, but promises are made to be broken. All the pictures were found on IMCDB.org. Can you believe there is an entire site dedicated to finding the cars used in movies and naming them all!!! Did I die and go to heaven? I know a lot of movies get their history wrong, or they just don't care about history, so if you see any car I posted, and want to add some info about how it really looked, or it never being a taxi, don't hesitate to comment.

Again I must remind you if you don't know already, that the NYC taxi wasn't always yellow. Each cab company would choose their paint scheme. The yellow dominance was introduced by John D. Hertz, a national taxi company owner (Yellow Cab Co.), and later of rental car company fame. He believed that yellow was the most noticeable color.

By the way I just saw my first Chevrolet Malibu hybrid taxi yesterday, I think it was owned by a fleet, so there should be a handful of them within the year. 

72' Dodge Polara

"The Seven-Ups"

Nothing says, I live in the era when everything

sucks, quite like this car.

Everything about this car is genuine. the red number 83 indicates this as the 83rd car of a particular taxi company. The taxi fare decal on the front doors and even the medallion number on the roof-light are very accurate.

57' Dodge Coronet

"The Best of Everything"

77' Dodge Coronet

"Murder She Wrote"

Could this be the ugliest car ever made?

55' Dodge Coronet

"North By Northwest"

80' Chevy Impala

"The Confession"

In the early 80's the Impala and the Caprice were virtually the same. 

59' Checker 

"Breakfast at Tiffany's"

Note the green and yellow colors, beautiful.

37' Buick Special

"The Natural"

I wonder if cabs ever had white wall tires?

36' Buick Special

"The Pantom"

This roof sign seems very accurate. I don't think any taxi was satisfied with a simple "Taxi" sign. I wish more movies would get this right.

36' Cord 810 Westchester

"The Shadow"

This car is amazing! Pop up headlights inside the wheel well?!!! How cool is that!!!!!??? Again the roof-light is very comparable to the DeSoto Skyview taxis, very historically acute. 

Right when aviation was getting started, everyone wanted to be a pilot. That dash makes the driver feel as though he were flying. I wouldn't be surprised if it had an altimeter. 

But my main question is: Was this ever really a taxicab?

42' DeSoto Skyview

"Saboteur"

The Skyview was aptly named for a glass roof in the back. Both the glass roof, and the ample room in the back made it the most desirable cab.

46' Plymouth De Lux

"The Shadow"

53' Plymouth Cambridge

"Funny Face"

Location: Washington Square Park. that's right, 5th Avenue went right through the arch and around the fountain.

65' Plymouth Fury 3

"Blindfold"

57' Plymouth Plaza

"Breakfast at Tiffany's"

55' Plymouth Plaza

"Funny Face"

37' Pontiac Delux

"The Natural"

57' Studebaker Scotsman

"The Best of Everything"

Taxi Models: Past

1922 Checker model H

Sourced from Checker Taxi Stand Page and also @ CoachBuilt.com

old fashined new york taxi
Originally uploaded by wukong 悟空 (Xuemin Guan)

1929 General Motors Truck Corp.

Checker Cab
Originally uploaded by Hugo90

36' Checker Y-8

The taxis in this picture are almost certainly Chicago cabs, but I'm almost as certain that the Checker Y-8 was used in New York as well.

New York Taxi - 1944
Originally uploaded by D200Chris

"When in New York-

Do as New Yorkers Do!

CHOOSE the CAB YOU RIDE IN

Don't just take the first cab that comes along

National Transportation Company- (Parmalee System Management) offers you the finest taxicab service in New York. It costs no more that the ordinary kind and is- CLEAN - SAFE - COMFORTABLE"

Chevrolet

Ray next to old fashioned American taxi
Originally uploaded by friskierisky

Despite being far far away in time and space, this car has all the true details, right down to the red apple shaped medallion mounted on the grille.

Desoto Skyview Cab
Originally uploaded by Randy52

DeSoto Skyview (mid 40's)

Desoto interior
Originally uploaded by Randy52

Chrysler

Back by popular demand
Originally uploaded by dM.nyc™

TAXI 07 02
Originally uploaded by siddeshwarshine

56' Checker A-8

Checker (model years 61'-82')

The civilian version was the Checker Marathon. The taxi version was more New York than a slice of pizza or the Empire State Building, despite Checker coming out of Michigan.

All things Checker @ Checker Stand

and more @ Wikipedia

73' Plymouth Satellite

84' Dodge Diplomat

80' Cheverolet Caprice

The Three cars

sourced @: Lost Soul Entertainment

Peugeot 505 Diesel (model years late 70's early 80's)

A solution to the gasoline crisis of the 80's.

Sourced here: 505 taxi USA

Ford Explorer (circa 96')

Lincoln Town Car (circa 96')

There was only one Lincoln taxi in New York City, only approved for a probationary period.

Chevrolet Caprice (circa 96')

Random sourced photo (model year 92')

In the late 90's, the typical taxi was in transition from the Caprice to the Crown Victoria. The preference was for the Caprice, but due to low sales General Motors soon stopped production.

The colt like love for the large american car and the monopoly that they had over police and taxi markets possessed an entrepreneur to consider purchasing the entire production line and the rights to produce the vehicles once General Motors gave up on production. But after Chevy gave up on the Caprice the fleets turned their interest towards Ford's Crown Vic'.

With the entire market, Ford decided to extend production year after year, although there were always rumors that ford would soon end the Crown Victoria. Again an entrepreneur suggested taking over the operation, but Ford, with a strangle hold on the police and taxi market, has continued production to this day.

Currently Ford has limited sales to only fleets and removed the Crown Victoria from all pamphlets. According to Wikipedia, Ford will stop production completely in 2009. OOPS! Correction, it is now 2010 and I occasionally lease cars made in 2010. This is really it, so they say, this is the last year of production for the entire family, Crown Victoria (fleets only now), Lincoln Town Car, and the Mercury Grand Marquis. Production was moved 2 years or so ago, from Michigan to Ontario, and now the media reports it will shut down production.

Ford Crown Victoria' (circa 95')

Isuzu Oasis / A.K.A. Honda Odyssey (circa 96')

The Odyssey/Oasis, was the city's first compact taxi since the Peugeot, and I believe the first van-taxi for New York.

The passenger doors swung out rather than sliding and were fairly large, which I think were requirements for the Taxi & Limo Commission. One feature were passenger seats that could be positioned either forward, for trunk space, or rearward for legroom. I rode in one with the seats forward once and had difficulty getting my 5' 7" body out of the car with my bag.

I imagine this car was fundamental in pushing taxi thinking outside of the box, suggesting that a taxicab needn't be a rear-wheel drive V-8 engined, wide bodied, long wheel base mammoth. With these 4-cylinder vans, drivers took a different, usually less aggressive approach to driving.

Trial Taxis

A taxicab cannot just be painted yellow, get the taxi stickers and be on the streets. New cars first have to be suggested to the Taxi and Limousine Commission, then the TLC can decide to put vehicles through a probationary period, or not. During such a period, courageous drivers can decide to purchase the vehicles that are pending acceptance. The TLC then keeps a closer eye on the trial vehicles seeing if they can hold up to the stop and go, the potholes, the demons, and the tight twisty lanes of our so called expressways. Within three years or so it is decided whether these vehicles are worthy.

london-taxi-nyc
Originally uploaded by GuyBrighton

Drivers and passengers alike can agree on what makes a good taxi. The TLC has a list .

The LTI Taxi, famous as a London cab, even did a stint in our city. For some reason, I don't think it was approved. I don't ever see it anymore.

The LTI meets our growing need for a car with lots of passenger room with easy accessibility. One of the key qualifications for a taxi in London is to have a tight turning radius. The LTI, I could imagine, can turn in a tighter circle than any cab in New York, and possibly all of America. According to their own website, the new LTI gets 25.5 MPG in the city with an automatic, so I assume that translates to 20 mpg in NYC, not particularly special but still better than our Ford Crown Victoria. Also LTI's have a wheelchair access ramp that the driver can slide out from the passenger door to the curb. This one and only New York LTI cab was spotted circa 2005

NYC Taxi - Mercedes-Benz E300 D
Originally uploaded by rayNYC

The Mercedes-Benz E300 D is another extremely popular international taxi from what I've heard from friends who've been to Greece and Israel. Yeah we tried that one too, beats me why it didn't cut whatever is in our mustard. It was rumored that the one driver who owned it, only drove in midtown and would refuse all longer rides. I saw the Mercedes once; the dude was chillen' with his windows down and the sunroof open smoking a cigar. The car had no partition between the driver and passenger, which is a choice drivers can opt for if they purchase a camera that takes a picture of each passenger, however, if the taxicab was considered too small, the TLC might have mandated the camera instead of the partition. RayNYC, who found the image, did his research, and according to the TLC there were just two in operation. He also told me the driver told him the car was twice the price of the Crown Victoria, but gas was half the price. I saw the Mercedes E class taxi circa 1998.

IMG_8696
Originally uploaded by lucky 327

Around the same time the two Mercedes' were on the road, two Lincoln Town Cars were being driven with taxi medallions too. Just like the Mercedes pictured above, they didn't seem to get the right hue of yellow paint as the rest of the taxis. The Town Car was doing extremely well in sales at this time, grabbing almost a strangle hold on the American limo market maintaining a large enough size to satisfy the clientele. A key feature was the air suspension which came in handy on the city streets, evening out almost all the bumps on the road to a smooth gentle ride.

Basically The Town car is a very glorified Ford Crown Victoria, and so for double the price, it wasn't worth using as a taxicab in my opinion, but there are differences such as the air suspension. Today both the Lincoln Town Cars and the Ford Crown Victorias hold respectively overpowering leads in the limousine and taxicab markets. It is their easy and cheap maintenance and reliability, plus their size, and their comfortable ride which give these cars their dominance in these markets. The Town Car outnumbers all other luxury cars by a huge margin in New York City. This market dominance grabbed hold in the early 90's when Lincoln's maintained a constant large size over the Cadilac which changed sizes of their cars from year to year, and Lincoln held the market with their good reliability. However the Town Car wasn't approved.

The Chrysler PT Cruiser Lithium-Ion taxi

was promised to drive 150 miles between charges and have a maximum speed of 80 miles per hour. Negatively it would take 6 hours to recharge and it would cost between 50 and 75 thousand dollars, however it was predicted to save a driver up to 15 thousand a year.

At the time it seemed almost as likely for this car to work as it did for the Ford Escape Hybrid. Retrospectively, the PT Cruiser was a laugher. This crack team of professionals who had bragging rights of working with government and (?) NASA contracts for electric vehicles, couldn't make a car capable for the job. It couldn't handle the cold weather for one. Secondly, only once did the Cruiser cruise for 90 miles, usually it only traveled 40 in a day, the rest of the time it was being towed. The average mileage I travel in my shift is between 100 and 200 miles, usually somewhere just under 150. This PT Cruiser must have been a hallucination, 'cause I never seen it.

image source here

Edmunds.com

The 06' Saturn Vue Green Line (25 mpg city) had a very short lived run as a taxi; so short I never saw the car. But according to this picture on the internet, much like the experimental Chrysler PT cruiser electric above, this too was once on city streets, for how long? an hour? who knows?

07' Chevrolet Uplander TC: Eldorado National Mobility

The Chevy Uplander TC (TC stands for Taxicab) seemed like a good choice for our new standard taxicab. A purpose built car to hold wheelchairs and be a taxi. It was the first of our approved taxis to hold wheelchairs without being jacked up to unsafe height in the rear, as it accepted wheelchairs through the passengers door rather than the trunk. But for one reason or another (it probably wasn't a very good vehicle) it didn't last on the Taxi and Limousine Commission's list. And so as quick as they came in to the New York taxi world, they were gone. The Dodge Caravan with the wheelchair package has replaced the Chevy as the American car choice for wheelchairs, and as the only approved car to take the wheelchair from the passenger doors. While the Toyota Sienna wheelchair kit has replaced the Ford Freestar as the new wheelchair unfriendly car that accepts the wheelchair in the trunk area. I must say none of these wheelchair models look very good, not even the ones still approved for purchase to use as a yellow-cab, we need a better solution. I've wrote some about, and posted pictures of those other wheelchair taxis still in use over here at Present Taxi Models

My shot of the Uplander TC

Image sourced from: Car Buyers Notebook