Duke calls time on his London cab
The Duke of Edinburgh is retiring the green Metrocab he has used for 18 years to travel incognito around London. The vehicle will go on public display for the first time after he donated it to Sandringham Museum, to be parked alongside Royal vehicles dating back to 1900.
FOR 18 years, it has carried the Duke of Edinburgh incognito around the capital; a pioneering eco-friendly London taxi that blends in seamlessly with the ordinary traffic.
This weekend, however, the Duke’s green Metrocab will go on public display for the first time after he donated it to Sandringham Museum, to be parked alongside Royal vehicles dating back to 1900.
The Duke has been using the cab since 1999, causing much amusement with its very ordinary appearance.
Despite putting the cab into retirement, the 95-year-old Duke will not be hanging up his car keys just yet, and is understood to be continuing to drive other cars.
Fuelled by liquefied petroleum gas, the Metrocab model has a Ford engine and was regularly used for private and official engagements. The Sandringham Museum announced in a newsletter that its new season, opening on April 1, will star the newly arrived cab.
“HRH The Duke of Edinburgh’s taxi, which he used for travelling to both official and private engagements in London, has arrived at Sandringham and has been added to the display in the Royal Garages,” it said on its website.
It is understood that the 18-year-old car had been due for significant repairs to keep it roadworthy, with the Palace deciding it was an opportune moment to display it for all to see.
Admirers of the Royal family will no doubt be intrigued to see the vehicle, which caused much surprise when it was first announced and has often been reportedly driven by the Duke himself. Royal sources said that, in fact, it was driven by a member of staff. A report in
The Daily Telegraph at the time it was purchased stated: “Taxi drivers seemed uncertain how to react to yesterday’s news that the Duke of Edinburgh will soon be spinning around town in a London taxi.
“It will normally be driven by a Buckingham Palace chauffeur, but Prince Philip may take the wheel when fancy dictates.”
It quoted Joe Fresco, a working taxi driver, who said: “I think it’s well out of order. If he likes cabs that much, he ought to put some trade our way, not try his hand at it himself.”
The Duke, of course, has been much photographed over the years at the wheel of a car, last year driving the Queen, the then-president of the United States Barack Obama and his wife Michelle from Airforce 1 to lunch at Windsor Castle in a Range Rover. In his early days courting the Queen there was some concern over his driving exuberance. He once overturned a car in a ditch and had a prang with a working taxi cab while the then-Princess Elizabeth was his passenger.
Marion Crawford, the Queen’s nanny, disclosed in her memoir a “general reluctance of the Palace chauffeurs to have Philip take out any of their beautifully kept cars, which might be returned to them with unsightly dents and buckled fenders”.
The 1999 cab will now join around 20 Royal vehicles at the museum, including a 1900 Daimler owned by Edward VII. Other Daimlers in the collection were owned by the Queen Mother and George V, with state vehicles including a Rolls-Royce. It will be the second car in the collection once owned by the Duke, joining a 1961 Alvis.