Beschreibung
Metrocab 7-Seater Taxi with 2. 5L Transit Diesel Engine and Nissan Automatic Gearbox. 12 months normal MOT and still plated with Derby City Council - owner now retired. Only very light use from new, First in London, then in Derby. So only 185000 miles from new. Constantly serviced and kept in perfect condition with no rust. Upgraded front suspension. Everything works including Applying for hire lamps and Fare Meter. Has modern Stereo with MP3 SD card ports etc. Has original Wheel chair ramps and retaining belts. runs and drives perfectly.
Bought for a charity run across Europe but plans now changed. Superb and very versatile novelty vehicle with no faults. Could still work as a Taxi for many years yet.
Background:-
The vehicle has a Ford Transit 2. 5 litre direct-injected diesel engine and incorporates many notable features for a taxi. The chassis is from galvanized steel and the bodywork was constructed from fibreglass. It was the first Hackney carriage model to have disc brakes as standard (from 1992), it also had a seven-passenger seat option, and wheelchair access. Many of the parts came from other car builders including headlights and front indicators from the Ford Granada Mk 2 (which had been out of production for two years by 1987), rear lights from the Escort Mk 4 Cabriolet and various switches and controls from the Austin Maestro/ Montego range were used. Due to the fibreglass construction and virtually bulletproof engine, many of these vehicles are still in daily use over 20 years later. Spare parts and workshop advice is available from a small number of specialist repairers.
The Metrocab taxi family tree can in be traced back to strong links with the early makers of motorised hackney cabs. A large Scottish engineering group, William Beardmore & Company, was the first to introduce a new type of taxi cab following the end of the First World War. Introduced in 1919, the Beardmore cab claimed half of the London taxi market by the mid 1920s.
In later years, Beardmore taxis were less successful but continued through various models till the 1960s. From 1958, Beardmore taxi bodies were made by coach and bus builder Weymann Motor Bodies, at its factory in Addlestone, Surrey. Since 1932, Weymann had been part of a joint venture with Birmingham-based rail and bus builder Metropolitan Cammell, itself a division of the engineering and shipbuilding giant, Cammell Laird
In 1963/ 4 Metro-Cammell itself bought out Weymann. MCW bus and taxi production (for Beardmore) continued at Addlestone. However a 21 week long strike in 1964 brought the Weymann factory to its knees. In 1965 the closure of the Addlestone factory was announced. The factory duly closed the following year, with all MCW production moving to the Metro-Cammell factory at Elmdon, in Solihull, near Birmingham. From 1966 on, the Metropolitan Cammell Weymann name was dropped and only the abbreviated MCW title used.
Beardmore taxi production stopped in 1967, the Beardmore company itself going to the wall shortly thereafter. However the link with taxi production was to survive through key staff working at MCW. They had begun design and development work for a new taxi cab – originally named the Metro-Beardmore – but with the demise of Beardmore MCW took on the project, which duly became the MCW Metrocab taxi by the time of its launch.
With the cab trade increasingly disgruntled over LTI’s virtual monopoly in London and its failure to come up with a new model to replace the ageing FX4, there was considerable interest in the potential for a choice of taxi at long last.
Sporting a modern-looking shape, the first Metrocab taxi offered a Perkins diesel engine. In a major innovation the new taxi cab had an all-fibreglass body. This made the Metrocab both light and therefore economical to run and also rust-proof – answering a key sore point on the dominant Carbodies FX4 taxi cab.
Initially the Metrocab taxi was adopted by the large London General fleet. However after working it for a couple of years this key taxi operator declined to invest in further development of the cab. Metrocab production ceased and the whole taxi project was shelved.
So as well as everything else, this remarkable vehicle represents an important piece for British History and an outstanding example of British Engineering doing what it does best; blending form to function without deference to style and aesthetics to produce the world’s finest and most sublime designs.
