| During the tail-end of the last
century, Call Sign ran a series of articles on the early days of the cab
trade. This provoked interesting responses from drivers who had driven
some of the older cabs. In this series of articles, Gerald (Jery) Craig
(C3) goes back to his days behind the wheel of the FX3... By Gerald Craig (C3) Getting Around London In The FX3 |
LOOKING BACK: THE FX3 OF YESTERYEAR |
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wooden block road surfaces that were all over the place, driving a taxi in
those conditions was to say the least, very interesting! For emergency use during the winter, I would have to carry a sack and shovel in the boot that often helped me get my FX3 out of the gutter and up the camber! I would swear that all the coughs, sneezes and rheumatism that I have suffered over the years can be traced back to the FX3's badly designed glass sliding partition that was on the left side of the driver's seat. It certainly wasn't nice every winter having to suffer the blistering winds that howled across the open luggage platform area into your already-freezing driver's restricted compartment. Each year my stiff neck and frozen shoulder from the previous year would cop the full blast of what winter had to offer. It was not until the FX4 in 1969 that the conditions I inherited from those FX3 days improved slightly. |
'Hot Lips' And The FX3 The 'new style' FX3 taxi (as it was advertised in The Steering Wheel) only had three doors and had 'evolved ' from the previous, but similarly designed low-loaders and fish-tailed cabs of the pre- WW2 years. Those cabs in turn had given their drivers the same drafts, soakings and rheumatism as the drivers of this so-called 'new' FX3 of the fifties. My late father-in-law, Sam Ward, told me how he drove in 1937 for Levy's of King's Cross and 'Hot Lips' of Stoke Newington, taxis that had only a half windscreen to shield the driver from the elements! Talk about doing a healthy out-of-doors job! In the light of what my father in law and his mates suffered, my full windsreened FX3 was a distinct advance in 'luxury' driving for taxicab drivers. What 1 did like about the FX3's new type of windscreen was its ability to open outwards. To do this, we would release large wing nuts on either side of the window, allowing streams of cool air into the driver's area during hot summers days and nights. Continued next month |
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