Taxi Driver Online

A friend of mine has found an old london taxi in a barn. He says its been there a considerable length of time,looks like a fairway but has an old Perkins (possibly a 407) diesel.
He's trying to work out what to do with it,are these collectable,is it an Fx4?.

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Selling Imperial tools for old cars.

Cant 100 % remember,thet were a 3 litre perkins engine.I think it was drivers who had them fitted cause of all the problems with the land rover engines ! I remember a fellow taxi driver having one here and it went like [edited by admin] of a shovel

I concur that it was a replacement engine that drivers had fitted,think it was on the austin fx4 but may have also been on the fx3.My first cab was an fx4 austin(AAK457T).I remember the auto version having a 2.2ltr engine which I was warned not to touch as It was underpowered and unreliable.Think my cab was a 1979.

Ps,think it was on these 2.2 engines that drivers put perkins 3ltr engines in (diesel was cheaper then!).

Remember the 2.2 ,fully loaded 6 people and cases and you had to hope it was all downhill !! I seem to think thats whenthey brought the fx4r out. Pure luxury ! Disc brakes,power steering

But still a heap of sh!t.

Yes, apparently, the FX4R engine was so feeble, it couldn't go up Highgate hill fully loaded. Owners sometimes put the Perkins 3.0 engine in as a replacement. The 3.0 Perkins has the same power and torque figures as the Nissan 2.7 according to the literature (86hp).
I would say that if the body and the interior are in reasonable condition, definitely restore it. They are quite rare now the 3.0 ones.
If he doesn't want to, advertise it in the London Vintage Taxi Association paper. I'm sure someone will take it off his hands.
It is probably a 1980 to 1984 - something like that.
I have read that the chassis sometimes experienced cracking and the more powerful Perkins was blamed when actually, it was a fault with the chassis welding.
It also has the classic dash with all the Smiths instruments but will be noisier, bumpier and less easy to stop than a Fairway. It will have a straight partition which means you can put a proper passenger seat in for the missus. (If you want to...)

Thanks for the replies,he's going back to have another look.Apparently there's also a 30's armstrong Siddeley in the barn with it but I've not been told where these are.
I can't believe that in this day and age the people who own the land have no idea of the value or rarity of the other car even if they don't know about the taxi and sadly I think my mates dithering will result in him being left with nowt unless he pulls his finger out.

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Selling Imperial tools for old cars.

I thought discs were fairways only?

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Fairway driver 95 ex London 12/2012

They were but they used to be converted to discs,think it was the same as a jaguar if i can remember that far back

My mate went back,the taxi has been sold while he was messing about.It was apparently a very early Fx4.
The Armstrong Siddeley went too.

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Selling Imperial tools for old cars.

he who snoozes.....looses

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

A year or two back a farmer near me had an sixties Riley in a barn,he got so fed up with being messed about by ditherers that he let it go for scrap.(his son had it running only the week before).
He told me that if just one of them had turned up when they said they would,he'd have given them the car.

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Selling Imperial tools for old cars.

I once drove one of the old bombers with the big steering wheel with no power steering. It couldn't pull me out of bed and when loaded it was useless.

I've got a feeling a couple of the Beardmore taxis had Perkins P3 engines! As fitted to Trojan vans..

My Guy bus has a Perkins P6, 48hp and that too won't pull me out of bed, but hey, it's nearly 60 years old and built for more leisurely times. Yes, it's still in service doing weddings!