Taxi Jubilee – Fifty Years of the Austin FX4 London Taxi

For over fifty years, the FX4 London taxi was THE London black cab. Along with Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and Tower Bridge, it was one of the sights of London that visitors expected to see. The intention was to build it for just ten years, and replace it, like its predecessors with something new, but fate intervened, in the form of upheavals in the British motor industry and the rapidly growing cost of producing new motor vehicles of any type. Faced with this situation, and the fact that they were the only supplier of taxicabs to London, the FX4’s makers and sponsors were obliged to soldier on with it, until, in 1997 they were at last able to introduce a new model of black cab, the TX1. In the meantime, both Londoners and visitors to the capital had come to love the FX4's familiar shape and its practicality, and to associate its timelessness and robust characteristics with the professional approach of its equally famous drivers.

This richly illustrated book tells the story of the FX4 black cab over those five decades and also features many of the special versions ordered by the rich and famous, details of many versions sold abroad, other bodies built on its chassis and technical specifications of every major model.