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Taxi! TAXI!!
Matt Menges writes: "This car was saved from the crusher
by the person I bought it from. He just could not see it destroyed, and to
help it live he tried to sell it several times, both on eBay and ForwardLook.
Sadly, even as cheap as he was selling it, no takers. He listed it one last
time, saying if not sold in a week, it was going to be parted out. He had
SEVERAL offers for its parts, but he just did not want to break it up yet
- one more chance. Here I enter the picture. He listed it as an old taxicab,
and I have always wanted one that was a clone of the cars on 'It's
A Mad Mad Mad Mad World'. So, I had to buy it."
"What drew me to the car is it's total lack of options.
It is a flat 6, three on the tree. It has a heavy duty front suspension, and
that is it. No power anything, no radio, no lighter, no clock, no trunk light,
no rear armrests, standard clear glass, nothing. How cool is that?"
"The car is not as bad as it looks, really, it just
needs a front lower valance, lower rear quarters, a trunk pan, a nicer hood,
and a nicer decklid. The typically rusty floors, fenders, doors, etc. are
all very very solid. It it is totally complete, it runs, and all the lights
and such work. After some body work, it is going taxicab yellow, but the door
jambs are all staying powder blue, as if you look at one of the cabs in 'Mad
World', one of the cabs was a powder blue car just like this one, with the
same color interior."
"The car was bought new in Port Arthur, Texas (it still
has some of the sticker on the rear body panel), and stayed in Houston it's
whole life. There was a cab company in Houston called Bluebird, and all the
cabs were powder blue. They went out of business in the mid 60's, so that
is most likely where it came from. It was driven daily up till 1995, and,
get this, was DRIVEN into the scrapyard
where it was to be crushed."
"Thats this car's story. Even as scary as it looks,
it still oozes cool."
Couldn't agree more, Matt. Looking forward to the day when
your ride looks like this:
(pictures courtesy of Ken Josephson)
