London Taxi with 2.7 Nissan Diesel

[garethj]

Reading down trig’s road test (the hero for scanning all this chod in) for the Fairway taxi, one thing puzzles me: how can it be so bad at everything?

 

The engine makes 78bhp at 4300 revs, so it’s slightly de-tuned from the standard 2.7 Fair enough because it’s meant to last forever.

 

In 4th gear it’s doing 29.5mph per 1000 revs, looks like it’s done for economy.

 

Top speed is 70ish at 2500rpm, as it makes peak power at 4300rpm if you drop the gear ratio it would probably go a bit faster, but it’s all for low revs and fuel economy. That’s ok.

 

Overall fuel economy 23mpg

At a steady 56mph it does 30mpg

No wonder all the government ministers go around London in Jags, it costs less to fuel than if they went by taxi!

 

Is the 2.7 engine really that inefficient or is there something else I’m missing? It’s a big old car, quite heavy and with an auto, but that shouldn’t matter at 56mph. Would fitting a 2.7 turbo from a Nissan Terrano improve the efficiency as well as making your trousers change colour when you get the drum brakes going? Transit engine and gearbox instead?

 

It’s an icon of motoring, cheaper to buy than a Mini and it’ll get you waved at down every street, but the running costs are worse than my 2.3 litre petrol Volvo.

 

EDIT, I love this pic too, in fact it's my screensaver at work

[trigger]

I just love that road test for the photo of the taxi cornering.

 

Fairway 2.7 Silver Black Cab Road Test 1989 1 by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

Fairway 2.7 Silver Black Cab Road Test 1989 2 by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

Fairway 2.7 Silver Black Cab Road Test 1989 3 by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

Fairway 2.7 Silver Black Cab Road Test 1989 4 by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

Fairway 2.7 Silver Black Cab Road Test 1989 5 by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

Fairway 2.7 Silver Black Cab Road Test 1989 6 by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

Fairway 2.7 Silver Black Cab Road Test 1989 7 by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

Fairway 2.7 Silver Black Cab Road Test 1989 8 by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

[Justin Case]

Reading down trig’s road test (the hero for scanning all this chod in) for the Fairway taxi, one thing puzzles me: how can it be so bad at everything?

 

Overall fuel economy 23mpg

At a steady 56mph it does 30mpg

 

Because it is as aerodynamic as the drawing board it was designed on :

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Never mind the fuel economy....Only a seriously warped place like London could have specified a particular vehicle for its (extortionately-priced) taxi service without actually making sure it can provide passengers with a modicum of comfort.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I imagine the lousy economy is down to a combo of fairly inefficient engine, barn door shape, power-sapping oldskool auto box and high weight from the forth-bridge chassis.

 

Bear in mind as well that those road tests always show poor economy figures due to the fact that they thrape the cars to death for a bit of the test, plus they are brand new cars so the engines have not loosened up yet

 

if I had one of those taxis and it was not giving upper-twenties mpg i'd think there was summert wrong with it. I doubt that would get much better on a long steady run though.

 

Theres a great write up about the FX4 on Keith Adams' site. It seems that the company building them was so fuggin stony broke during the 70's that they had to persuade austin to help them out financially whenever they had to do any testing or buy any tooling or anything beyond bashing out taxis off their clapped-out 'assembly line'.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

Like Mr_Bo11ox hinted, big indirect injection diesels are really inefficient. I'm not sure why they didn't fit a detuned 200TDi or something.

[CIH]

I love how the mpg and 0-60 almost match. How many cars an boast that eh ?