Not really a movie question, just a general query. I was watching the delightful “Carry on CabbY” which I had never seen before. All of the cabs had no door or seat on the left front, just a platform that stuck out a bit. What was that for? Can they close up in cold weather?
Dennis
It was for transporting luggage. They stopped requiring it in the 1950s. This one looks like it has a partition with a sliding window for the driver, although I don’t know if it’s been modified since it was built.
(I can’t find any pictures of the luggage platform with luggage on it to see if it was strapped down somehow.)
Early on all of them had to have that as a luggage area. Not these days.
Wikipedia has this to say about them:
Picture showing the cab with suitcases on the luggage platform:
Aboot? ABOOT!? Are asking about filthy canajun cabs?
London taxis went through many different designs until WW2 and the iconic TX4 (which did not have the luggage step) was introduced in the 1950s. The main reason why there were so few changes, is that the limited market meant that there was little investment in design and the restrictive rules:
The reason that most were black was purely because the owners wouldn’t pay extra for other colours.
