TSS - 🚖 A new London taxi?, 📺 The Harsh reality of being an entertainment creator, and 📺 Becoming a black cab driver

Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Sunday summary!
Another busy weekend away for me working away in Switzerland🇨🇭

🚖 I test drove the new MAXiCab

Allied Vehicles invited me to their ginormous factory in Glasgow Scotland to see the new Ford MAXiCab.
It’s a converted vehicle that is gaining huge popularity across the country, and is trying to make in roads in London. But, it doesn’t have the unique turning circle and the vehicle itself is 5cm longer than the what the conditions of fitness state.

I’m honestly quite torn. I’ve written for the UGC before about how the turning circle is very important to London. Not because of the turning circle itself, but because it creates a standard or bar that manufacturers have to achieve to bring a vehicle into London (i.e. iconic shape, passenger features etc).

The turning circle was introduced as a conditions for fitness in 1906, likely because of a change to combustion vehicles. Which when doing a 3 point turning; changing gears, was highly likely to stall. The implications of which would be chaos in London, as vehicles back then needed to be hand cranked to start again!

I had an extensive test drive, within their compound, and was even lucky enough to drive it back to the airport. A beautiful drive! Spacious and very well set up for the driver.

LEVC are currently being very hush hush about any new taxi (if any), and no new vehicles are currently being produced. How can a trade (drivers, garages, and adjacent businesses), plan, forecast or invest if they have no idea what’s coming! Or if production will begin again. It’s somewhat reckless and leaves the London taxi trade in a very difficult place. If LEVC pulled out the market tomorrow, we could arguably be in the worse situation without an alternative.

And that’s what this vehicle is, an alternative. Very likely that LEVC will remain the dominant player, with this MAXiCab being a minority option. Some people have the objection that allowing this Cab will open the flood gates to more van style conversions, but there’s very few vehicles that fit the bill for remaining conditions of fitness criteria. Even if this was an option, it would be far to risk for a small outfit to go to the lengths to convert a vehicle that would be a maximum of 3000 vehicles if we’re being optimistic!

I will be making a video about the turning circle and what it means, so this isn’t the end of this topic for me.

(For transparency, Allied Vehicles just covered my travel. There was no pressure to visit, to film, or to do anything with what I saw. If I wanted to slate the taxi, I could!)

🎙️ A personal podcast feature

The Harsh Reality of Being An Entertainment YouTuber in 2026 - Stokely Howard (The YouTube Guy)
This is probably the only podcast I’ve ever done where I share very deep information about my YouTube process (not because I’m guarding it, but because no-one has really asked me 😂).
Loved this, if you want to get an insight into what my production life is like, and know the thoughts and decision making processes that go into all of my content, this is for you!

📺 A friend’s taxi feature

The Knowledge: becoming a London black cab driver - Dave Cunnington 
I previously shared details of this event at the Royal Geographical Society, if you couldn’t make it, it’s now available to watch online and learn about Dave’s knowledge journey. Dave is an absolute legend, and had his own unique London knowledge before becoming a cabbie! Learn more about it in the video.

🎙️ This week on cab chat

Have a great week,

Tom

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