[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by ram

And a taxi has traditionally served as a station wagon, a vehicle to carry long-distance passengers to/from the railway station/airport, with their luggage.
So it has to have a large dikky and maybe an overhead luggage rack ("carrier" as locally known).

Along with the Tata Indigo, What about Fiat Petra to replace the Bombay Taxi?

Speaking of the Fiat Uno, a three-box version actually existed. It was called the Fiat Duna (Fiat Prêmio in Brazil).


Like Indians and North Americans, Latin Americans traditionally love sedans more than hatchbacks. In Argentina the 1987 Fiat four-door Duna, was was largely used as a taxi, with CNG engines. Between 1990-1996, it was the most sold car in the market.

In a 25,000 km reliability test, a 1.5 litre 82 bhp Fiat Duna SCV, on the Rafaela's Speedway did a total time of over 170 hours with an average speed of 146 km/h.

Eventually the Duna and Duna Weekend were replaced by the Fiat Siena/Petra and the Fiat Palio Weekend.

Fiat India could cheaply redo a CNG Duna in India exclusively for taxi and cool-cab use.

Ram

looks like the pal-peugot

[sumitkalindi]

Originally Posted by Dippy

Ok who all want to be part of my union?

You know what u'll get

Dippy

I am for It. Khandani Taxiwallah.

[sumitkalindi]

On a serious note, any car to be a taxi has to be cheap to maintain. Just think of it, the whole headlight assembly of a Amby, Padmini, can be changed for mere 100 Bucks, including the lamp. Got the point??? So any car trying to be regular everyday cab has to compete with these spare prices to be Sucessfull. Yeah, I can see indica, indigo, petra on the horizon, but only on the horizon. Maybe a redesigned front of the Indica will work. Omni yes it is the cheapest vehicle to maintain and operate. So, it is there.Versa is too expensive for apetrol engined car. See, a taxi operator can make do with the higher prices of the spares, vehicle, only if it is compensated by fuel costs. Which is the majority of the cost in taxi bussiness. And remember, unless Amby is discontinued from production, West bengal will continue to have only Amby's as the regular taxis, as per government regulations.

[ssl2uv108]

Some important factors for deciding the taxi car:

1. must occupy less road-space
2. must be eco friendly (cng/lpg only?)
3. spacious enough for 4
4. aesthetically appeal even to guests from foreign countries

is the indica the right car then ??

[sajo]

Indigo/Indica would make for good taxis.Infact, Tata should make a smaller (say 1.2L) petrol engine designed primarily for FE, and which would run on LPG/petrol.It should also be quite easy to repair and maintain.

Slightly OT :how about the trend in the tourist taxi market? Apart from the standard Indica/go & Marinas and other standard vehicles , I have also seen lots of Ikon Flairs (CLXis too) , Lancer GLXds and surprisingly, NHCs. I wonder what influences the fleet operators there? Because if a 3 box is all they want, an Indigo is a cheaper and equally spacious option compared to NHC. Also seen a few C/E class and one S350 taxi. One car which
should be a logical choice for fleet people in that segment would be the Octavia diesel, but I havent seen a single one to date.

[Mpower]

Lot people take taxis only when they are going to the airport or railway station. So its important that it have a boot.

Indica with a huge CNG tank will have next to nothing luggage space.

[khanak]

Originally Posted by Mpower

Indica with a huge CNG tank will have next to nothing luggage space.

An Indica Marina would be good. A special version for the cabs. completely stripped down with factory fitted CNG. Everything should be centrally controlled with a radio in each car. like Delhi's Radio Taxi Service. If the colours werer to be changed wht do youll think it should be changed to?

I personally tihnk the yellow nd black combos the best..

[binz]

The esteem has great potential.Think about it,in another 2 years mul should have a replacement for the esteem.The esteem with a factory fitted cng like the wagon r will be the most suitable for the taxi market.

Service can be done almost anywhere,its got good FE,decent performance and fairly good looks(better than the indigo atleast IMO).Plus its cheap and doesnt suffer from any reliability issues unlike the (older)tatas.

Also after the launch of the swift,maruti as a brand now has a much better image and with their now lineup...sx4 blah blah,this is only going to get better.Really hope to see esteems with gps navigation and tracking and decent educated drivers.

binz

[karlosdeville]

i think everyones getting ahead of themselves...there are 55,000 taxis in bombay alone, out of which 53,000 are premeir padminis...! theyre dirt cheap, the supply of cars to convert to taxis wont run out for ages, neither will the dirt cheap spares...give the humble padmini its due, like the beetle taxis in mexico...make them a tourist attraction!

[THE-U-]

How about these London taxis?

http://www.londontaxisna.com/index02.htm

[Ram]

Friends:

Here is a copy of some thoughts, I posted on a Friday night, 13 Jul 2001.
I thought you might enjoy reading it too!

The ubiquitous Fiat 1100 Delight(aka Premier President; aka Premier Padmini) graced the Bombay taxi world from 1960 thru 1999. She is not produced anymore. Her diesel engine has been outlawed. The surviving black and yellow Padmini taxis we see in the City today, retrofitted to injest compressed natural gas, are all between two and fifteen years old.

The Fiat Delight was a single model that survived over four decades. During her four-decade life span, she bore and sustained a small-ticket cottage industry from pavement garages: Koliwada and Saki-Naka to parts fabricators from Patiala to Coimbatore.
Her frugal costs of acquisition, running and maintenance afforded taxi travel to a middle-class Bombay.
Never again will we see such longevity in a model and more importantly such frugality.

Buyers of new taxicabs are experimenting with the dimunitive Daewoo Matiz, Maruti Alto and Fiat Uno.
Does a London, NewYork, Tokyo or Singapore have ugly one-box squarebackers as taxicabs dotting the landscape?

And all of these three happen to be priced higher than the Padmini ever was. The availability of spares is sparse and the prices hefty in comparison with the humble Padmini. Not to mention the Padmini’s rugged longevity. She was so much more car than these micro-hatchbacks will ever be.

She joins the Trams, Czech trolley buses, Victorias, Daimler double-deckers that once graced Bombay — an icon is passing!!

Ram [ramrao@bajirao.com]

It's at http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad.../msg00122.html
That email id is obsolete. My current email-id is ramraosaheb@gmail.com

[agspins]

best option for taxis here would be lpg/cng versa and indigo ,both are spacious and easy on the maintainence side.
apart from that cng/lpg versions of esteem and ikon can be considered for
cool cabs n all. Petra can also be a good choice as t starts just at 4.2 and if all knick-knacks removed cost can come down by atleast 20-30k's

[Insane Devil]

well well, nice issue going on

Tata Indigo and Alto sure seem to be the choice, but comparing to the standards in other Asian countries, esp.Thailand, where they are all Corollas and a lil bit of innovas as taxis.

I think the Aveo wud be a nice car to be seen around taxing, looks smart, and city full of it, wud definately look hip!

[karlosdeville]

great post ram...

tis high time we give the padmini its due...encourage the drivers to do them up, give them some allowance, let them be as iconic to bombay as the london cabs....seriously, it aint so difficult...its very very practical, and everyones happy...especially the 53000 padmini taxi drivers...

[Centro-P]

I believe that a 'clean' (say CNG) Ambassador would be the best bet for Indian roads. Its big, its spacious, is pretty comfortable, and all the fat aunites and uncles can easily fit in there whereas they would have a hard time going into an Indica. It also has enough dicky space(everybody knows how much stuff we Indians carry ) and its usually dirt cheap to maintain. And do taxi drivers really care if its a 50 year old model? For them it serves the purpose well. Plus its very iconic. Just imagine NYC without its Crown Victorias. Ofcourse the black and yellow should be maintained goes without saying.