One of our readers, Fin Gold, has taken the plunge and ordered his taxi from John Bradley. He’s at that difficult waiting stage, while the car gets refurbished, painted, checked out, etc., then finally loaded on a boat. Fin is building a very nice website and blog about the experience at http://nclondoncab.com/
Take a look and commiserate with Fin while he awaits completion and delivery of his cab!
One of our readers is selling his taxi.
Tim Brown has been using his taxi - named Margaret - as a hire car in the Seattle area, but is moving on from that venture. His car is a nice looking black cab, and he’s been running it on biodiesel since bringing into the states last year. For those not familiar with biodiesel, it’s a great fuel - diesels run better on it, and it’s not made from petrochemicals. You can make it in your own garage (from vegetable oil) or buy it commercially.
Anyway, here’s his car. Tim says it looks and runs great:
If you’re interested leave a message here and I’ll forward on your contact information.
Wesley has changed paths - from English lanes to California freeways and byways, down in the greater Los Angeles area. Barbara and Paul from Simi Valley, CA imported Wesley from London Taxi Exports, and report the same positive experiences that we had with John Bradley there.
So welcome to the states, Wesley! We hope to bring Miss Tuppence around for a visit, or as Paul suggested, at least get the two of them on the phone together…
The weather’s turned, and is so pleasant - driving the taxi is fun again. We’ve been using it and getting used to it all over again. I’d almost forgotten how fun this car is to drive!
The Valley British Auto Club has a car show coming up Sunday, Oct. 14, and we’ll be there. We’ve entered Miss Tuppence in The 2007 Clovis British Car Roundup. For more info visit The Valley British Car club’s site and come to Clovis, near Fresno CA, for their show.
We parked Miss Tuppence for a while when our famous Fresno summer kicked in with 110 degree heat, as the air conditioning just doesn’t do enough. But like we do every year, we got used to the heat and started driving her again. I’m glad to say that the engine’s cooling system is fine with the hot days. There’s an electric fan on the front of the radiator that we switch on, otherwise, the car hardly notices that we’re not in jolly old England. We just drive with the windows and sunroof open.
Last weekend we drove Miss Tuppence on an outing into the Sierra Nevada mountains. the performance going up was just what you’d expect from a 4 cylinder diesel - a mite slow - but we got there, and enjoyed the ride.
Here, I’d driven into Sanger for some work, and it was nice and toasty - 100 degrees in the shade - when I took this photo. But I complained a lot more than Miss Tuppence did.
Here’s a comment I got from a reader of this blog - these are all great questions, so I thought I’d answer them here.
Hi Len,
I am considering getting a London Cab from the same outfit. I would be interested to know the steps you went through from the time you decided to do it until the time you received it. Things like:
How did you communicate with the London Taxi exports? (phone or email)
Did you deal directly with John Bradley?
How did you know which options were available?
What options would you recommend or not (like the A/C)?
How did you find a customs broker?
How expensive was the import process?
John said I could talk to his “US agent” and gave me a name and number. Did you do that?
Any other explanation of the process would be really helpful.
Thanks,
Max
We communicated with John Bradley primarily through email - we did talk on the phone a couple of times, but my western US accent and his strong British accent made it a bit dicey. So most of our communication was by email, which I favor anyway as it gives a clear record of what was said, agreed to, and so on.
We first contacted him in July of 2006. We perused his website many times before - ever since taking a trip to London in 2003 and my wife falling in love with the English Taxi. So I knew his website had been up at least 3 years at that time, which made me feel better about sending a stranger all that money for a vehicle.
We emailed back and forth for a few months, and in mid-September we agreed to buy a vehicle. I sent him an email with our full expectations - color of the vehicle, engine/transmission, everything in working order, etc - along with our mailing address. I called him and gave him a credit card number, as he does not have a secure website for financial transactions and I wasn’t going to email the info. He then did the mechanical work needed, had the vehicle painted, added the A/C, and put it on the ship. It took about 3 months for all that. The taxi left England on Dec 23, and arrived in California Jan 16. Clearing Customs took 2 days, so we had our vehicle on the 18th.
For options, we have the jump seat in the front - not very comfortable to me, but my wife loves it - the air conditioning, and the taxi meter. The meter isn’t hooked up, so it doesn’t work but it is fun to have. We also have the taxi-light on the roof. John will tell you what else is available. The A/C isn’t the best, as I’ve mentioned; but bear in mind that I live in a very hot place - near Fresno, CA - so we’re an extreme case. Our taxi has the sun roof, and with the windows down and the sun roof open you do get good airflow in the front. (I’ve never ridden in the back, but it seems adequate).
Another highly recommended option: Get the shop manual. Expensive but really needed if you have work done. I watched ebay for a while, as they get the FX4 shop manuals now and then, but I missed out on the only one that came up while we were waiting for our Taxi. So I finally broke down and bought one from John.
Finding the Customs broker is a real hit-or-miss deal. I went to the port website and found a list there. I also called the US Customs office at the Long Beach port (they take care of Port Hueneme, which is where the car actually came) and asked them for recommendations. I contacted 3 and got estimates; the one that was most professional got my business (they seemed to all charge the same). They took care of everything for me, and clearing customs was a breeze as a result. But it cost about $750 as I recall. There is also a port fee of $100 payable in cash to the shipping company. Oh - also, be sure to tell the Customs Broker that the taxi comes with a Nissan engine. There was some confusion, but once they understood that the Nissan engine is stock/factory equipment, everything was fine.
DMV was another problem. There is only one place where the ID is stamped, so they had me take the vehicle to the California Highway Patrol for inspection. This took months to complete, as there is one inspector for Fresno, and he made an error on the paperwork so I had to go back. It took 4 visits, copies of all my paperwork, tremendous patience, and about $1000 to get a California title and plates.
John sent us a title registered in our name (his address) in the UK, which was cool to have. We made a good color copy and gave that to the DMV - they’d asked for the original, but they didn’t know the difference when we gave them the copy. We kept the original for ourselves.
I did call another Taxi buyer in the states - he was in Texas, and a very helpful person. He was considering becoming John’s agent then, so it could be the same person. Like you, I wanted all the information I could get before committing to the purchase.
I hope this helps — any more questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
There are other London Cab owners here in the colonies, though we are a rare breed. If any of you would be interested, I’d be glad to host a message board so we can share repair tips and experiences. Please let me know if you’re interested by posting a comment here.
We live near Fresno so air conditioning is not an option, its a requirement. We had John add it in England. We tossed around adding it here, but he offered… long story short, those folks just don’t know about air conditioning. The air blows cold but the vent is on my feet; my ankles freeze and the rest of me roasts. My wife, who rides on the jump seat beside me, gets blasted with too much cold air. I was able to reduce her airflow to a mild roar, but I’m cooked - medium well, at the moment. I think I can make it tolerable by taking out the ash tray and putting the vent for the A/C there. I’m not certain how to do this (other than taking it to a A/C shop and saying, “fix this”!) but it’s 106 today, so it’s high on my list.
I tried to tweak Wordpress and screwed up this blog, and had to take it down so I could fix it. Then I didn’t get a round tuit for a while and forgot it was broke. So I apologize if you were looking for info and I wasn’t here.
Our first look at Miss Tuppence was at Port Hueneme, near Ventura, CA, after she’d made a long sea voyage from England.