While catching up with the weekend papers, this caught my eye in the Honest John column of the Telegraph Motoring Section:

Cab age soup

Would a used taxi be a sensible purchase as an everyday car?
P.C., via e-mail

• It will be slow, uncomfortable for the driver and, in all probability, worn out after its long, hard life.

He’s right on every count, although might I recommend a seat bolster from a Hyudai to remedy his second objection?

I’ll let Tom fill you in on the technical details, but good progress has been made.

Dyk has also revealed some of his secret past in the shape over £10 in loose change and a empty durex packet.

Many thanks to Matt for the endless supply of hotdogs and coke.

Given that I’ve spent more than a little time on this I want to blag the credit for the work I’ve been doing on the design (if you hate it then it’s all Phil’s fault).

I’m done with the basic layout (check out the bumper at the bottom of the page, it’s probably going to be missed by most people) all I need to do now is sort out the text formatting, a job not made any easier by Internot Exploiter’s idiosyncratic rendering of things that work in a proper browser [ressum, fessum, messum…]

Right, I’m off to design my own web site… with blackjack… and babes. In fact: forget the web site… and the blackjack.

Well, that’s the last of it, we’ve paid for the Le Mans tickets, the grandstand seats, the camping pitches and the ferry, so now all we have to do is sort out the small matter of getting there…in a cab.

While on the subject of admin though, I’d like to say a big thank you to Justin in the sales team of Ferry Crossings-UK and his colleagues in the customer service team for getting everything sorted despite a slight hiccup with payment.

Thanks to all.

…they’ll most of them be missed probably, but I couldn’t resist the chance to quote G&S.

There’ll be tinkering next weekend, and so far I have the following to look at with the help of Matt, Chris, Phil , Ian, hell…whoever’s about.

1) Get my DYK started (did you see what I did there) by ensuring a fully charged battery, a primed fuel filter, and double checking that the glow plugs (at £40 a set) are not causing any starting difficulties.

2) The headlight. Hopefully just a matter of a bad earth, and after cleaning off some verdigris, all will be well.

3) The wiper. This is a dashboard out job, and apparently, if it’s anything like a Series 2 Landrover from which the mechanism is half-inched, a complete swine of a job.

4) The rust-proofing work (Matt, you’re doing a sterling job, keep it up!)
5) The stereo (but I’ll leave that to Chris I think)

6) The TAXI light

7) The sponsorship (although that’s really one for the week and not of paramount importance. We’re doing it anyway for fun, but if anyone wants to give us money/parts/stuff in exchange for 2000 miles of mobile advertising to some of the most enthusiastic car owners in Europe, then do let us know)

.

Blimey, I’ve seen more well ordered bowls of pasta, and, I’m not sure if I should be worried or not by the presence of a fire extinguisher…

Two people have already mentioned this to me, it seems to be a point of confusion.

Yellowgrey is just the name of the host website, nothing to do with the taxi itself which is certainly black (with patches of rusty brown)

Hello, my name is Matt, and I’m just along for the ride. When I first heard about the idea of going to Le Man in a Jag or a Taxi, I was praying for the Jag.

But now the Taxi has arrived and I see it everyday, I look to the Heavens and cry “WHY!?!”

All I can do now is pitch in and see what fun is in store for us…

Greetings, my name is Tom, and I like driving. I’m going to be doing most of the driving on this outing (at least I hope so), which is going to involve piloting DYK through France (once I get it running again).

I was originally going to replace my dull yet functional Audi 80 with something more interesting to pilot us to Le Mans, and I made the mistake of asking these fine Gents what I should get. Chris responded that I should buy a 6l V12 Jag, and I agreed as long as we’d all split the cost. I’m not quite sure how that metamorphosed into a London Cab, but it has more character, and may even get us there (and I can run it on chip fat).

This was what I used to drive btw:

Hi, I’m Chris and it was me who first mentioned the idea of a taxi, I would like to claim it was all some sort of beautiful moment of epiphany with a choir of angels but the real reasons were born out of me not wanting to drive my Renault Clio all the way to Le Mans

The conditions of the scheme were a maximum £500 total cost for 4 people and something “with style”, so I hit fleaBay as soon as I could and taxis popped up relatively early in the proceedings. Rejected ideas included a hearse as that seemed to be tempting fate just a little too much.

The main reason I got involved in this project was so I could legitimately buy a bowler hat.

I’m Orde and I’m the web monkey. I went along with this idea and it was too late to back out by the time I realised we were serious about it. I take full credit (and absolutely no responsibility) for us ending up with a taxi - it wasn’t my idea or my decision but I lobbied relentlessly for all of about a half an hour before any lingering resistance caved like a bunch of speleologists on a field trip.