From the September 1992 issue of Car and Driver.
Ask any British four-year-old to draw a taxi, and the child will produce something that resembles a Carbodies FX4.
This odd name will make more sense to Americans if it’s revealed to be the traditional London taxicab, one of those practical, blocky taxis characterized by maintenance and cleanliness standards that exceed those of most hospitals. Moreover, these odd transportation modules seem inevitably to be driven by cabbies who know where they’re going.
Approximately one-third of what the British call “black cabs” aren’t black at all, though they are lumped under that generic term to distinguish them from “minicabs,” which are not mini at all but just ordinary sedans. Once, no more than 30 years ago, all London taxis were black, all London buses were red, and all British racing cars were green. But times, and cabs, have changed.
The drift to colorful cabs began in the 1970s when a humorous and stylish black cabbie named Kenneth Arthur Brown ordered a white cab. Today there are blue cabs, maroon cabs, cabs of all colors. Like racing cars and London buses, cabs have also become mobile advertising billboards.
The British infrastructure of trains, buses, roads, drains, water supply, and nearly everything else may be crumbling, but the British have the most strictly run taxi system in the world. Drivers whose cabs have been damaged in accidents may turn nasty and burst into tears, but they are not permitted to drive around with dents in their vehicles. They must also keep their cabs scrupulously clean.
Becoming a cabbie involves far more than paying £17,587 ($31,419) for an FX4 Fairway, fitting a meter, and switching on the “For Hire” sign. A cabbie must first acquire “The Knowledge.” The knowledge refers to knowing not only the streets of London, but also the fastest and cheapest way to go from a given point A to a selected point B. This entails endless hours of riding the streets on a moped, a clipboard laden with instructions and maps clipped to the handlebars, followed by an examination of boggling particularity.
Once the cabbie earns his badge, he may consume traditional greasy English breakfasts at subsidized prices in one of several rest stops for cabbies dotting the capital—a relic from the days of horsedrawn hansom cabs.
There are some 54,000 taxis in Britain, 28,000 of them purpose-built. Of the 16,000 black cabs in London, 15,000 are FX4s. In 1990, FX4 production at Carbodies peaked at 75 per week. Since then, the recession has caused the factory to lay off 150 workers, and production has dropped to 45 a week.
The managing director of Carbodies, Peter Wildgoose, believes his company can measure the nation’s economic pulse more accurately than professional forecasters, doing so by knowing London’s hotel-occupancy rate and the number of jobs booked on the cabbies’ radio circuit.
An FX4 costs 50 percent more than a Ford Sierra, and its lifespan is twice as long. The average lifespan of an FX4 in London is 10.6 years or 400,000 miles. In the countryside, where there’s less traffic, the mileage can exceed 500,000.
The FX4’s development illustrates what can happen in an evolutionary backwater with few outside influences—an island separated from a continent, say. The current FX4 may look unaltered, but not one 1992 body panel fits a 1958 cab. The body in question is still made of stamped steel mounted on a ladder frame, and the one-piece-roof press in Carbodies’ Coventry factory is among the remaining wonders of the British motor industry.
What’s an FX4 like to drive? If you are of greater than average height, you have to squeeze yourself behind the wheel, but once there you’ll be acceptably comfortable. The 79-horsepower 2.7-liter Nissan engine is relatively smooth for a diesel. Other diesels were used in the past, and there are still some old smokers running around with the 2.5-liter Austin (Land Rover) engine that shakes violently at idle but never seem to go wrong.
Performance is more than sufficient to compete in the hurly-burly of London traffic, even without the unfair advantage of being allowed to drive in bus lanes. There’s adequate acceleration on the way to a top speed of just over 80 mph. It is theoretically possible to extract 29 mpg from these conveyances, but reality places the figure closer to 20.
The Fairway has some surprising components. There’s the unequal-length control-arm front suspension; like the Corvette, a Fairway has composite leaf springs at the rear. Like a Ferrari, the manual-gearbox version (rare in London but accounting for 40 percent of production) is unwilling to accept second gear until the oil has warmed. The FX4 is the same width as the contemporary Lotus Elan. In no other respect, however, is the FX4 like any of these vehicles.
It’s easy to drive an FX4 gently and smoothly, though you might not guess this from the lurching performances turned in by most cabbies. Push the FX4 beyond its low threshold of adhesion and you will induce oversteer, which fizzles out feebly as the inside rear tire lifts itself and spins away the energy. On a greasy surface, it can be more fun, but it always feels as if you were sitting up high and doing things that would horrify the car’s designers.
Perhaps because of the unfashionably narrow 175R-16 tires or the control-arm suspension, the assisted rack-and-pinion steering provides a surprisingly good feel. Front disc brakes are a relatively recent innovation and work satisfactorily until you try some ultra-late braking, which will send a shudder of disapproval back through the body.
The key to the London cab’s success is, of course, its twenty-foot turning circle, and this more than anything else gives it an edge over ordinary sedans on London’s narrow streets. Marketing persons would call this a unique selling proposition.
The extreme steering angles needed to achieve that tight turning circle preclude a front-drive layout, though. But the current rear-drive layout provides sufficient space and generally rides well.
It is odd that this British cab has never become an export success (left-hand-drive versions have only recently been produced). The black cab may be a bit weird and eccentrically British, but it is extraordinarily well adapted to its intended environment—crowded cities—and there’s no reason it should not work in Paris, Tokyo, or New York.
Odder still is that no major manufacturer has yet muscled into the cab market. Peter Wildgoose puts this down to low volumes. Carbodies has never built more than 3000 vehicles in a year. “Volumes would have to grow to ten times their present level to get beyond [the low-volume factor],” he says.
The FX4 has one rival—the fiberglass-bodied Metrocab, now built by Hooper, the famed coachbuilding firm. The person who hails a cab in London today has a one in sixteen chance of being hauled away in one of these. The tradition-minded tourist, however, will likely prefer an FX4 black cab. In whatever color.