NAUGHTY JEEVES

It was the friday night of one of those weekends when you just want to stay in.  We had been invited to a party which we were going to drive to later that evening. Mia was driving back from work and parked Jeeves in a spot across the road that should have been fine for the moment whilst we quicky got ready to go out... But, we didn't go out... Jeeves stayed there the night rather than being parked in his proper little house.

The next day was Saturday, and the flu hit bad, we were both feeling sick, Mia was tucked into bed most of the weekend with Mia-flu and I was quite happy to potter around and make hot drinks for the bed bound lady. That evening, I looked out the window to Jeeves but couldn't quite see him around the corner. We thought nothing of it and went to bed.

Saturday came and went... London was miserably cold. We stayed in.

Sunday came and went... London was miserably cold. We stayed in.

Monday came... I went to move Jeeves to his correct little parking space where he has to go during the week days.

No Jeeves to be seen. I stood in the street for a while half expecting him to appear. I ran back upstairs and said to Mia "Jeeves is gone", she laughed and said, 'ha ha thats funny, now can i have some lemonade" ... but he was. He had been taken by the council to the car pound. :(

I bundled poor Mia up as  I didn't have the courage to go by myself to this foreign nasty place to find Jeeves, whats more, we found out on the phone, that yes, they had him, but he would cost £340 to be released... and if we got there after 10.50am, it would go up to £380.

Oh dear, what has Jeeves been up to?

We found out that we had parked Jeeves in a spot which was fine for Friday and Sunday, but not Saturday. From Saturday morning, until Monday morning, he wasn't even there - across the road, but at Limehouse car pound hanging out with the other disfunctional cars... or dyslexic cars that can't read parking signs properly.

Let me out you bastards!

To be fair, the people who towed poor Jeeves away to the pound had a fairly slick operation. They lift up the cars up and place them on huge trucks for transportation without leaving marks.  But for £340, you would hope so! Waiting in the waiting room, we were also treated like hardened criminals, and a word of advice, don't try joking around with these people, becuase they are not having any of it!

Almost free!

We'd like to say that we learnt a lesson from the whole experience but to be honest Jeeves could have done with saving a bit of pocket money up before he decided to go and get banged up. And we  suppose you are not a proper London driver until you lose your car to a nasty money-making pound.

But, for all those black cab drivers out there, the lesson is that there is no special treatement for being a London icon, no-sir-ee, poor old Jeeves was in there with all the other late night ravers.

Free at last! i'm never going back in there again!

We all kept our cool and were philosphical about the whole experience. Jeeves now sleeps in his proper home and Mia and I read signs about 10 times before parking.

FOAM MATTRESS

We had a slightly crazy idea that we could sleep in Jeeves. Make him pay his way in the form of a hotel room. We do plan on a more sophisticated method of making a bed in the back, but for starters we thought we would try a piece of custom cut foam to place in the back on the floor.

Holy moly which foam should we get?

Pentonville rubber is an old-school and great shop on Pentonville road near angel (104-106 Pentonville road, N1 9JB to be precise) They have a huge range of different densities and shapes of foam including tubular foam that was being purchased at our time of visit by a guy who was going to use it to make huge 'spagetti hair' for a prop. 

Trying to decipher the complex world of foam

We were lucky because we were able to get our foam cut to size in about 10 minutes while we waited. In case anyone is interested in this ridiculous amount of detail, the size to fit on the floor in the back is 52cm x 172cm. We chose medium density foam in  3inch thickness which was pretty comfortable for a nights sleep here and there. It cost us about £30 and should "last a lifetime".

Mia with our cut-to-size foam bed

The opening hours are normal working hours during the week 9-5pm, 10am-3pm on Saturdays and its closed on Sundays. 

Stay tuned for futher progress on the sleeping conversion.

BUTTONS AND KNOBS

This post is all about the buttons and knobs inside Jeeves... they operate everything from whether the car is ready to be started, heating and lights to the cappuccino maker, passenger ejection seat, and the all-important turbo button... good for the motorway. More on that later in this post.

First, we want to introduce you to our winter friend, the little blue box. We tried starting the back window de-mister as it fogs up a lot when its cold, but it didn't seem to work. We went to see our friends at the garage and they told us that there was a small blue box that should be plugged in, but was missing. This magic box makes the de-mister work. 

The magic blue box in situe

Mr friendly mechanic got us one from a dead taxi which was so nice of him as the are usually around £50 and often 'go missing' as ours had. Our back window will now stay clear and de-misted all through the winter. The de-mister works on a timer for 15 minutes as people used to forget to turn it off and drain their batteries.

The blue box

The buttons below are just on the middle of the dash board and and indicate various lights. (from left to right)

Button 1: interior light for the back passanger area
Button 2: interior light for drivers area (front)
Button 3: don't know as it doesn't seem to work (clues welcome)
Button 4: hazard light (thank you button for people behind)
Button 5: don't know, but same symbol as button 1 (clues also welcome)
Button 6: back window de-mister

All the little buttons on the dash board

The hazard light which is nice communicator with fellow drivers

The magic turbo button

So, back to the all important Turbo Button. This button basically allows the car to go into the fourth gear. It is the small square button next to the gear stick, in the picture above. When you press it the green light (in the picture below, to the right of the steering wheel) turns off and you can swoosh down the motorway like all the other cars.

Start indicator lights

These lights also indicates if the car is ready to go. When you first start the ignition the orange and the green light comes on and then when only the green light is on you are ready to go!

TWO UP FRONT

This post is a long time coming, and probably one of our favourite and earliest modifications we made to Jeeves when we got him. That is... a front passengers seat. As you may or may not know, black cabs have a bit of a void in this area. We really wanted to be able to both sit in the front. Some of the important jobs for passengers include - getting the driver un-lost, being the DJ, holding the coffee and providing general entertainment.

We had seen a few different options around for the front seat, including a folding seat similar to the flip-down ones on the back. This would have been an OK option, but with a comfort factor of about 5... on the other hand, our friendly mechanics managed to install a drivers seat from another (dead) taxi into our space. There were some previous fairway models with a narrower drivers seat, and this was perfect as our passenger's seat.

If you have mega long legs, its not the most ideal of options, but given there is less space on the passengers side, we think this is a great solution and works perfectly for us. Apparently it is the seat belt that was actually a bit trickier to install, but our guys did an amazing job.

Here you can get an idea of the amount of space at the front, and the seat bolted firmly onto the floor.

ADVENTURE TO RICHMOND PARK

Richmond Park, south London

The autumn is here and the perfect time to get out of the city and smell some nature. Richmond Park felt like a good choice as it is Deer Rut season and we could see some stags prancing around the fields. We decided to go around and pick up a bunch of friends and have a picnic amongst the trees and the dog walkers. 

Mia with the appropriate chauffeur head gear

We drove down from Hackney across Tower Bridge, and made our way to Richmond Park. It was such a nice drive and we fitted everyone into the spacious belly of Jeeves. As we drove through the park there were hordes of deers, so we got out quota of wild-life-spotting filled.

The Deers of Richmond Park

It was also an opportunity to thank Michael and Claire, who came along on the first viewing of Jeeves to be moral support and lend their opinion on the purchase.

Michael, Sam, Catrin and Claire enjoying the passenger area

And yes, those are optics that you can see in the right hand side of the picture. The former owners left them from when they transformed the back of Jeeves into a small bar, and we found them quite handy for our passengers.

After arriving at the park, we even found a car park where everyone could have a little go at being a cabbie.

Milla is testing her knowledge, but Mia and Jacqui are blocking the drive way 

Handsome Jeeves in all his glory

We also got to use our folding picnic table. It fits perfectly in to the boot when folded up, but also fits in the back of the cab when set up for candle lit indoor taxi dinners.

A perfect autumn picnic

The taxi picnic cake made by Milla after Mia dropped the camera in it.

CAR BOOT SALE

We decided to have a car boot sale last weekend as a means of getting rid of a lot of tat! We would never have been able to consider it without the help of Jeeves. He was perfect... docile, obedient... and most of all SPACIOUS! We fit the table that you see into the back without any trouble at all, in fact, everything you can see in this photo was inside the back of the cab.

Jeeves helping out in the background at the car boot sale

Since we had been up since 6am (hence the slightly stiff and unimpressed posture in the above picture), it helped that we could take turns having cat naps inside the cab when business was slow! The (little bit of) London sunshine heated up the cab perfectly creating a little green house effect and a toasty warm place to nap.

INSURANCE

Getting a sensible price for insurance was a major consideration for us. We called around ALOT and recommend to persevere. In the end we got a great quote from Peter Best who specialise in vintage cars. Our quote was around £400 which we grabbed!

The only other insurance companies that gave us a quote was Adrian Flux, but that was a lot more. The blog 'My London Taxi' give some more great information in this area.

For the insurance we had to send some photos of Jeeves printed out on photo paper

THE BEGINNING OF JEEVES

It was the second of October, 2010 when we first met Jeeves. Earlier that summer we had been to a festival, and walking around the car park we realised that if we were to get a car, the was no other choice but to get a Black Cab. At first it was just a crazy idea, but the more we looked into it, we realised it was an actual possibility.

We found a really great and useful blog; www.myblacktaxi.blogspot.com from which we got loads of tips and inspiration on how to go about getting a cab, as well as confirming that this was a good idea and not just a fantasy.

We started looking on Ebay to get a rough idea of price and availability. This was a good starting point, but making such a big purchase without being able to check it first is never a good idea. So we also got in touch with a few Taxi dealers, who wold have provided a great product with everything checked, but out of or price range at around £3500.

We also managed to get hold of a taxi trade magazine, which has a classified section, but in the end it was actually a contact through Ebay that lead us to Jeeves.

Joe and Jamie, the previous owners in front of Jeeves

A couple of guys who had previously owned this cab had just completed a charity drive around Europe. They were reluctantly selling it as it wasn't practical for them to keep it. We made contact with them and agreed to go and see the car before completing the deal. This was a perfect situation as it gave us the possibility to look up insurance, check it out and get some second opinions from friends. We paid £1100 for it, which was a great price considering we were going to have to do a bit of work on it, and we had researched that the average price for a cab like this was around the £1500 mark.

Jeeves with his original stickers from the charity drive

The important thing for us was that, apart from being mechanically sound and a great drive, Jeeves came from a good home, and we know what he was up to before we met him. It was pretty much love at first sight.

We decided to start this blog to document the adventures of Jeeves the black cab, and also to give some helpful information about our experiences, for anyone else considering getting a black cab. We are not mechanics or car experts by any means, but we are learning as we go along.