You remember our hapless $800, 375,000-mile ex-New York City taxi, don’t you? Sure you do. Yellow, Nissan, kind of banged up, absolutely filthy, considered a biohazard, worked like a dog for a decade of hard NYC taxi labor? You know it. We bought it as part of a sponsorship deal with Copart, and even in our short time owning it, it hasn’t had it easy. Our car-rescuing demigod Stephen Walter Gossin had a crack at it first, and he made some initial progress on getting it back in shape. Keep in mind, this is a vehicle that a Nissan dealership said would need over $14,000 worth of repairs to be roadworthy, and spending that kind of money on this steaming pile is only just slightly more likely to happen than my next fart becoming sentient and curating an Alexander Calder retrospective at the Whitney.
My Autopian co-founder David Tracy, a man more used to automotive lost causes than St. Jude, came down to North Carolina to wrench on this thing in hopes of resurrecting it. David and I spent a solid week wrenching and hammering on the taxi, and we got it in running shape, incredibly.
Oh, wait! I almost forgot: before David came down to help me work on it, a miserable tow truck screw-up launched the poor cab into a tree, smashing the rear doors:
What I’m saying is that this 2014 Nissan NV200 taxi has lived a hard life of constant toil, and every one of those hard 375,000 miles left its mark on this beast. If a magic horse were to appear and grant this cab the power of speech, I’m pretty sure it would just beg for the sweet release of death; this cab wanted nothing more than to stay in that junkyard and quietly yield to the cold yet comforting blanket of death, where there were no more fares to run, no more traffic to JFK, no more smacking wheels into curbs, no more pain.
We did not listen.
No, instead, we resurrected this cab, telling the Grim Reaper in charge of Nissans and Infinitis (and some Renaults) not today. This hardworking taxi needs a proper send-off, and we’re going to give it just that, with a trip all the way across this great nation of ours! Oh, and the first leg of the trip is from North Carolina to NYC; if you look on the cab, you’ll see I’m contractually obligated to take anyone to JFK for a flat rate of $70, so if you need a ride to JFK from Chapel Hill on June 17 or so, let me know.
The cab runs. There’s no air conditioning working yet, but I’m going to see what I can do there, and it needs a little suspension work, but other than that, I think it’s mechanically as good as it’s going to get. What may be a bigger concern is how absolutely disgusting the interior is:
There’s a reason there was a biohazard sticker on this thing. Because it was hazardous, biologically. So I’ll need to get that all nice and cleaned up. And maybe try to repair those seats.
Oh! And just for fun, I’m going to fill in the hole in the back where the taxi-advertising monitor thing was with something much better: some genuine 1980s 8-bit computing hardware!
I have an Atari 600xl – complete with 16K of RAM! – to mount in the back with that little screen there. My kid Otto is coming with me on the trip, so he needs some way to play Pole Position and Frogger and Donkey Kong and maybe learn how to program in BASIC, right? So I’ll have to install that.
This trip is not just about seeing if this cab will make it – we want to try and see as many of you as we can! So, with that in mind, here’s our planned route, and all our stops:
So, we’re going to hit the Mid-America VW Funfest in Effingham, Illinois, and we’re going to have reader meetups in Columbus at Der Dutchman Cruise-In, Lawrence, Kansas, and Denver! I’ll be gambling for next month’s payroll in Vegas, and then we finally should hit LA by the 24th, Nissan-gods willing. So, please, come see us! I’ll try to remember to bring some stickers and shirts and stuff if I have any here to give out! There are no hard plans other than going to the Der Dutchman Cruise-In, attending the VW Funfest in Effingham, and probably doing breakfast in Lawrence, so let us know if there are any other events along the way.
Just be wary of the road madness that I likely will be affected by. It’s powerful.
Oh, and one last detail! Look what we got for the cab:
A working taximeter! So, while we take this trip, we’re going to finally find out how much it would cost to take a NYC taxi all the way across the country! You know you’re curious!
Is this a bad idea? Probably, yeah! A really bad one! But we’re going to do it, anyway! I hope to see you out there on the road, and hopefully whatever tears are in my eyes will be ones of joy, and not ones of misery because I decided to drive a should-have-been-dead taxi across the freaking country like an idiot.
Seeing the name Alexander Calder calls to mind the very first, achingly beautiful BMW Art Car:
01 | Alexander Calder 1975 – BMW Art Cars
CRAP! I’ll be at the Colorado Gambler 500 when you are coming through Denver.
Ya know… you can always join up with the Colorado Gambler folks that weekend with this Taxi. Last year we took Corollas, Camry’s, Focuses, etc.. through the red rocks at the border of Utah/Colorado. Could be REAL fun to see if the NYC taxi can survive that too! (it probably would).
Torch! Where is the Taxi Museum in NYC? I know the transit museum, but that’s for subways. Is that going to be a meetup or just something to do for content?
There’s a nice car museum in Manhattan, Kansas, just a little North of I70:
https://midwestdreamcarcollection.org/
I’ll see ya in Vegas!
Son of a biscuit! You’re finally going to be in my neck of the woods, and I’ll be on a work trip out of the state.
Grab some doughnuts from Der Dutchman. You’ll need to make sure you don’t go over the GVWR, but you won’t be sorry! Possibly my favorite doughnuts in the Central Ohio area, as blasphemous as that is to some of my friends.
Well, TECHNICALLY, Der Dutchman is in Plain City, not Columbus.
For those not from central Ohio, it’s an Amish restaurant.
Buffet and and pastries.
Large portions, befitting the girth of many of its patrons.
All you can eat $14.95
Looking forward to seeing all this infamy! (Torch included!)
Ok so you have an NYC oddball taxi, a built in Atari, and I think the only thing preventing it from becoming the ultimate Torch mobile is some sort of ultra weird, bespoke taillight modification.
Oh, you just know he’s scouring Ebay for taillights with amber turn signals from Indonesia or Mexico Market Chevy Express City fog lights.
More power to you, but I wouldn’t go for a ride in this thing until I’d watched the entire interior disassembled and bleached.
Really suggest looking into an ozone machine or mold fogger. Run it with the windows up, steam clean the interior (I have one of these and it’s excellent for demolding car interiors: https://amzn.to/3ZpIBW7), then run another ozone treatment. Then leave it outside in the sun with the windows down to air out for a while. Should be good without disassembly.
How are you not stopping in Philly??
I just commented that they should stop at Simeone Auto Museum here. Come on, Philly Autopians, unite!
The Denver to LV leg looks like it should be a violation of the Geneva Convention to take your son. You sure you want to subject your son and yourself to 11+ hours in that thing?
That would be an absolute brutal drive and a 100% shame to blitz through some of the most beautiful parts of the country.
Hey Torch if you read this, highly suggest you make a detour south at Denver, then cut west near Pueblo. Spend the night in the San Juans. I have some land if you want to crash out, but I won’t be there. Has power and is 8 minutes from a grocery store and hot springs.
You’re absolutely right. That is some spectacular scenery to drive through and explore.
I like to think that “taximeter” is pronounced like “altimeter”.
It never occurred to me that was the way to pronounce it, but I whole heartedly agree!
Since this is a Nissan it made me think about an “Altimameter” Which would measure on a scale of 1-11 how Altima that driver is currently being.
Good lord.
I’ve seen and smelled this thing. I wouldn’t drive it across the street.
Godspeed, Torch. Godspeed.
Please tell me you guys are driving through Hampton Roads. I would love to at least give you a retro-Subaru escort as you pass through!
Also, I think there’s a law against driving a taxi in full livery in New York City if you’re not a cabbie – you may be ok since the museum is in Brooklyn. Either way, just try to look cabbie-ish.
I’ve heard of the Saabaru but want to see what a Subaru Escort looks like. Thats some fine Rally mash up pedigree.
I’m stoked that you are stopping by Lawrence! If you need tools or a place to stay/shower/park/wrench, I’ll hook you up!
I’m nearby too, in Overland Park…..
Pleeeeaaaassseee stop at the Car Wizard’s shop in Newton for a mechanical inspection!
I live in the flyover state of Pennsylvania between point 1 and point 2. So I’ll only have a chance at meeting up if the thing breaks down early!
Hoping they decide to add a stop…
Please tell me there is going to be a huge celebration in chapel hill before you leave. OK… Maybe not “huge” but an official start ceremony attended by locals where a green flag can be waved and we see the cab get onto the street and then completely disintegrate after 100 yards of driving would be fun and a huge opportunity for nanigans of the female variety.
hernanigans?
Pick me up in Baltimore and take me to NYC? I’ll buy the pizza when we arrive!
If.
Or perhaps cheesesteaks in philly!
Road trip with the son. How fun. Will there be a separate article about the tools you’re bringing just in case? I hope a chainsaw makes the list.
WEST! WEST BY GOD! getouttahere with your Left Virginia.
Isn’t most literature based on bad ideas? The Iliad? It’s just one bad idea after another. The Odyssey, more fittingly, had a lot of bad ideas too,
So , from an editorial viewpoint, think you will be fine.
Ilios is the Greek name for Troy. the “ad” means the story of. So…technically the Iliad is “Troy Story”
Still one of my favorite meme/trivia bits.
At least your schedule takes into account the extreme likelihood of a roadside repair!
Enough?
If, after leaving NYC, you decide continuing would be unsafe/suicidal (but when has that ever stopped you before), there are plenty of sinkholes along I-80 in NJ near my house that you could ditch the cab in and catch a flight home. 🙂
We really need a Autopian CW McCall Convoy/Cannonball Rally
It was the dark of the moon on the 18th of June, in taxi hauling Otto.
CVT with plexiglass and Atari in the back.
We was heading for NY on 95 bout a mile out of North Carolin’
I says, “Otto, this here’s the Chainsaw man and I’m about to put the hammer down.
It figures that you’ll be nearest my home when I’m out of town. Maybe someday I’ll be able to catch a meet-up, but not this time around, it seems.