Come See Our 375,000 Mile Copart Taxi In New York, Ohio, Or Illinois!

With the help of our friends at Copart, we bought a NYC Taxi with 375,000 miles on the clock for $800 (before fees, shipping, fixing everything, putting an Atari in the back seat, the usual). It appears to be in good running order, and our plan is to drive it from New York City to Los Angeles this weekend. If you’re in the United States, there’s a chance to come see me, Jason, Otto, and Griffin along the way, starting in Queens tomorrow afternoon. I’ll write down the plan below, or you can skip ahead to the non-narrative description.

It’s a somewhat ridiculous ask to have people meet you anywhere in New York City at 5:00 PM on a Wednesday, let alone to see an NV200 cab, given that there are still at least dozens of them on the streets of Manhattan. Because we’re committed to the bit, we actually bought a taxi meter from Taxi Depot and had them program it to the correct New York City fares circa 2025.

Because it’s a fun group at Taxi Depot, and because they have a little taxi museum in their shop, they’ve agreed to let us have a few readers over to hang out after they close and check out their wares (you can buy yourself a Euro-American rooflight) at 5:00 PM on Wednesday night. Specifically, the address is 2450 47th Street in Astoria, Queens, and our plan is to be there with the taxi by around 5:00 PM, depending on traffic. I’m taking a separate car, so I’ll get there a little early. The goal is to hang out for an hour or two, pick up a few last-minute items, and then head to our sleeping arrangements so we can get up early the next morning to…

Drive to Plain City, Ohio, and the Der Dutchman Cruise-In event. This is a car meet next to the Der Dutchman farm restaurant in Plain City, near Columbus, and it’s a classic cruise-in show that requires no fee or registration. Just show up and eat your face off while also talking about cars. If the taxi hasn’t already bit the dust by this point, we suspect we’ll get to the cruise-in by 6:00 PM

Following that, we’ll be at the Volkswagen Funfest in Effingham, Illinois, at some point Friday night. We have no plans for the next morning, but my guess is that we’ll go wander around the show for a bit, and that’ll be the best time to join us. You can always email me or reach out on Discord (or in the comments) for more details.

The rest of the trip is a little more up in the air. We plan to have breakfast in Lawrence, Kansas, but haven’t decided where. It feels like bad luck to plan more than a few days in advance (I haven’t even booked hotel rooms yet). Either way, we’re looking forward to seeing a few of you along the way. Here are the details in an easier-to-parse format:

Meetup #1:

When: Wednesday, June 18th @ 5:00 PM

Where: Taxi Depot in NYC

Address: 2450 47th Street in Astoria, Queens

What: Hang out, look at the cab, try to fix whatever we’ve broken.

Meetup #2:

When: Thursday, June 19th @ 6:00 PMish

Where: Der Dutchman Cruise-In

Address: 445 Jefferson Ave, Plain City, OH 43064

What: Look at cars and eat pie

Meetup #3:

When: Saturday, June 21st

Where: VW Midwest Funfest @ Mid America Motorworks

Address: 2800 N 3rd St, Effingham, IL 62401

What: Follow Jason around as he identifies every Volkswagen.

When (if) we make it as far as Effingham I’ll start updating the rest of the trip and getting more hotel rooms.

Top Image of Otto Von Bismarck: Public Domain/Wiki