AN ECCENTRIC mechanic has converted a London taxi into a crazy rat-rod van in just seven days. 44-year-old Paul Bacon, from Leicestershire, spent over $600 on a traditional black cab and with the help of some timber, fibreglass and expanding foam he managed to construct a rusty rat-rod that he now uses for work. It took Paul just a week to finish the project – and he admits that he can no longer drive around his local town without receiving a few strange looks.
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MotorTranscript
00:00A lot of people who first see the van say it looks like something from a horror movie.
00:23The centric car customiser, Paul Bacon, has created this weird yet wonderful vehicle to
00:29act as brand ambassador for his car customising business, Cyclone Works.
00:35So the inspiration for this project was just to build something really quick. I needed
00:40a van, I wanted that retro sort of cool look. Initially I was looking at taxis just to use
00:46the chassis on a different project but then it occurred to me, you know, I could convert
00:50this into a van.
00:53So then the taxi van, even though it looks like it's been quite heavily lowered, it's
00:57not lowered at all. Suspension is totally standard. What I've done, I've lowered the
01:02wheel arch from about just here, down to there.
01:07I've really liked cars all of my life, particularly custom cars, hot rods, that sort of thing.
01:13We've got the truck style wing mirrors and we've also got the swamp box aircon there
01:19as well, which is made out of the back box just from a scrap yard.
01:26I started off in my back garden. I basically cut the back of the old taxi off, built a
01:31timber frame and then started to construct the new shape of the van around that timber
01:36frame using dye bond and expanding foam that was finally covered in fibreglass.
01:43Built the taxi van in seven days. The reason it was done in seven days, I had seven days
01:48free, I needed a van, that was all the time I had, so it had to be done.
01:54Inside the van, first off we've got the seats. It's the rear seat out of a 1974 Rolls Royce
02:03Silver Shadow and that just went in really easily, just fitted like it was meant to be.
02:10Under the bonnet of the van, it's a really big heavy bonnet, 2.7 Nissan engine that loads
02:18of London taxis have.
02:22So the paintwork on the van is, it's a sort of a fake rust paint and then it's got some
02:28white and then that was all tinted over with 2K matte lacquer.
02:34At the moment, I've only ever really been up to about 64, 65, but I'm hoping to break
02:39that magical 65 barrier over the next couple of weeks, probably on a nice downhill stretch
02:44of road.
02:47The process start to finish came in at just over £1,000. The taxi, I got the taxi for
02:54about £450. It's probably the most usable vehicle I've built. A lot of people smile,
03:01people wave, people come up and ask a lot of questions about the van, but it always
03:06starts every morning, it always works. I can carry loads of junk in the back and that's
03:12probably all you need from a van really.