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On Thursday 4 November, Call Sign was invited
along to an astonishing press conference held at M&O in Brewery
Road. We’ve been to many of these conferences and usually they
tell you little that you don’t already know. On this occasion,
we knew that Manganese Bronze Holdings and M&O were going to
change their name to the London Taxi Company. Call
Sign was told the change was coming many months ago and
actually published the story. Chief Executive Officer John Russell told the large attendance that the reason was the obvious one – when you tell someone you are with MBH, it is meaningless. But tell them it’s the London Taxi Company, then it presents a different picture! Mr Russell added that following last year’s dealer network rationalisation, customers would now be able to deal direct with The London Taxi Company, buying their taxis straight from the company’s now extended dealer network – the M&O network in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and the further three retail outlets recently opened in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Coventry. But there was one huge surprise waiting for us that no one guessed was on the way – a huge price reduction in the cost of their taxis! If you have bought a new TX4 in the last few months, you’ll know the prices: The TX4 Bronze came in at £32,995, the Silver was £35,495 with the TX4 Gold weighing in at a hefty £37,495. It was left to the London Taxi Company Sales Director, Rob Laidler, to make the shock announcement. From the day of the press conference, they were launching a new model range of vehicles that had been simplified and cut from three derivatives to just two. According to Rob, the new models represented the culmination of all the work they had been doing to bring the vehicle cost down. "It’s important that our customers understand that we have not only changed our name, but how we deal with them. We wanted to pass on the benefits of dealing direct and cutting out the middle men when drivers talk to us about buying a new TX4." |
£5000 off the price of a TX4! |
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  The
two new models that replace gold, silver and bronze - The Style
and The EleganceJohn Russell addresses the press conference |
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The new version of the TX4 range
consists of two models, an entry level Style and a higher
range Elegance. Both vehicles are available with manual
and automatic gearbox options. But it was the price announcement that bought audible gasps from those present. The Style starts at £28,995 on the road for the manual and £30,995 for the auto, while the Elegance comes in at £30,995 for the manual and £32,995 for the automatic. The Style model has black bumpers, trim and cloth seats. The Elegance has full air conditioning, a chrome pack, colour coded mirrors, bumpers and optional metallic paint option as standard. "With this pricing, we have passed on the cost savings to our customers and have launched an aggressive transparent pricing strategy that does away with huge discounts and artificially high retail prices. Drivers now benefit from knowing exactly how much a vehicle costs and not having to haggle or negotiate," continued Mr Laidler. The news continued to get better as The London Taxi Company senior personnel explained that drivers buying a Style or Elegance before the Government VAT increase in January would get an extra saving as the quoted rates included the forthcoming 20% VAT. So buying before January with a 17.5% rate would mean that the Style and Elegance would start even less at £28,403 and £30,361 respectively! |
To save the press working it out,
Rob chimed in to say that any driver buying and taking delivery
of a Style or Elegance before the VAT increase would gain an
added benefit of up to £671 additional savings. By Call
Sign’s reckoning, that put the difference between the old
Gold and the new Elegance at over £5,000! Reverting to the new company branding, we were told that the new logo had been designed specifically to reflect a clear, sustained message and reinforce the company’s new focus. It incorporates three main colours - red, white and blue - plus two additional auxiliary colours, gold and silver. These colours represented the core colours of theBritish and Chinese flags – a clear confirmation of the importance of the company’s joint venture with Geely. Images were chosen to reflect the heritage and history of the two companies. Britannia – an indisputable and recognised symbol of Great Britain, and the Geely six principles or "flags" of leadership – all signifying aspiration and the global future of the company, intrinsically linking the partners, illustrating their shared vision and goals. Rob ended by saying: "We have been able to reduce the entry level costs considerably on both the TX4 Style and the TX4 Elegance, offering a competitively priced vehicle that is still the best purpose-built hackney carriage in the world." |
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