Oh Crown Victoria, where art thou? Okay, so Ford's venerable body-on-frame, V-8–powered sedan with a disposition towards public service is still largely in service in police and taxi fleets across the country, but it's no longer being produced. So as more of the old birds die off, Ford will need to fill the void with something else, and that something else is the Transit Connect Taxi. While Ford is entering beefed-up versisons of the Taurus sedan for police use, the automaker has been feeding the outgoing Transit Connect (TC) to the hired-car crowd since 2011; now that a new TC is coming for 2014, so comes a new taxi.
Based on the all-new, civilian Transit Connect, which plays little brother to the larger, full-size Transit van, the taxi inherits a new engine, a longer and sleeker body, and a lower roof. There's more room inside, which should make for a better ride for passengers, though unlike London's famous taxis, the TC seats just three in back on a bench seat. A fourth passenger can ride up front with the driver, but what the TC lacks in segment-busting passenger capacity, it more than makes up for in legroom and cargo space. A full 60.5 cubic feet of largely, ahem, cube-shaped space lives behind the second-row seats, and is accessed via super-awesome barn doors. The Crown Vic never offered barn doors, though it was sort of shaped like a barn.
Ford claims that, besides offering more space than before, the new Transit Connect's other changes make it even more taxi-friendly. For starters, the lower roof offers fleet operators more useable dome space for advertisements, while the optional 6.5-inch MyFord Touch display with SYNC and navigation brings a touch of luxury to the driver's quarters. Apparently, Ford tested the sliding rear doors for over 250,000 "door-slam cycles," but the company didn't elaborate on how many drunken door-slams it put the TC's sliders through. Speaking of lubricated passengers, the plastic-look floor seems to invite the kind of daily hose-outs key to washing away messes left behind by kids or late-night fares attempting to make kids.
- First Drive: 2013 Nissan NV200 Compact Cargo Van
- First Drive: 2014 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter
- Instrumented Test: 2012 Mazda 5 Sport Manual
Overall, the TC taxi seems nice and right-sized for modern taxi duty, especially when compared to Nissan's NV200. Chosen as New York City's Taxi of Tomorrow, the 2014 NV200 taxi is slightly smaller than the Ford taxi in every dimension. The Ford appears to come only in the longer of the Transit Connect's two available wheelbases, which stretches over five inches longer than the NV200's wheelbase. Also, while the Nissan is powered by an anemic 131-hp 2.0-liter four paired with a CVT, the Ford gets a larger 2.5-liter four mated to a conventional six-speed automatic. Although Ford lists the 2.5-liter's output as "not yet rated," the same engine makes 175 horsepower and 175 lb-ft of torque in the Ford Fusion and 168 ponies and 170 lb-ft in the Escape, so it should be similarly well-endowed in the TC. Ford says it will begin building its new cab early next year, which is right around the time we expect Nissan's entry to hit the market—it looks like a taxi comparison test might be in order . . .
from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com
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