Offroad
The 5 fastest taxis of all time
As Jon Olsson plays cabbie in his 1000bhp Audi RS6, we look at the world’s most rapid taxi journeys.
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Monte Carlo is a place so drenched in cash that having a two-time World Rally Champion ferry you around in his car doesn’t sound so crazy. And that’s just what Sébastien Ogier was up to ahead of last year’s Monte Carlo Rally, treating his passengers to a frenetic lap of the principality’s streets in his Volkswagen Polo R WRC. Well, he was until the police stopped him. Luckily, Ogier speaks the lingo…
Cabbie: The Stig
Taxi: Top Gear Live London Taxi
Where: London
The Top Gear Live Taxi, as you’ll probably be able to work out from the video above, isn’t your run-of-the-mill London cab. Beneath that iconic exterior lurks a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII FQ-360 which has been set up for low-speed drifting – as TV presenter Chris Evans found out when he went for a ride with Top Gear’s tame racing driver, The Stig.
Cabbie: Fred Bernhard
Taxi: Volkswagen T1 “Race-Taxi”
Where: Spa-Francochamps
Imagine you were at a track day at Belgium’s Spa-Francochamps circuit in your shiny, powerful Aston Martin DB9. You’re giving it the beans, feeling pretty pleased with yourself. And then a Volkswagen bus slips past you going into Eau Rouge and accelerates away down the Kemmel Straight.Pretty gutting, right?
Well that’s exactly what happens to the poor chap at the three minute mark in the video above. He shouldn’t feel too bad, though, because underneath the V-Dub 'Race-Taxi’s' body is a 530bhp twin-turbo engine from a Porsche 993, while at the wheel is former motorcycle racer Fred Bernhard. As a clever man once said: choose your battles wisely!
Cabbie: Sabine Schimitz
Taxi: BMW M5
Where: Nürburgring
Sabine Schmitz is known as the ‘Queen of the ‘Ring’ – and with good reason! The German racing driver is a two-time winner of the Nürburgring 24 Hour race and, up until 2011, could often be spied driving BMW’s famous M5 ‘Ring Taxi’, pale-faced passengers in tow, around the daunting 73-cornered, 12.9-mile Nordschleife circuit. Schmitz reckons that she’s lapped the Nordschleife well over 30,000 times in her life, though, so at least her fares are in good hands!
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