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A lot of people who first see the van say it looks like something from a horror movie
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A centric car customiser, Paul Bacon, has created this weird yet wonderful vehicle
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to act as brand ambassador for his car customising business, Cyclone Works
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So the inspiration for this project was just to build something really quick
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I needed a van, wanted that retro sort of cool look. Initially I was looking at taxis just to use the chassis on a different project
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but then it occurred to me, you know, I could convert this into a van. So then the taxi van, even though it looks like it's been quite heavily lowered
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it's not lowered at all, suspension's totally standard. What I've done, I've lowered the wheel arch from about just here down to there
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I've really liked cars all of my life, particularly sort of custom cars, hot rods, that sort of thing
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We've got the truck-style wing mirrors, and we've also got the swamp box at Econ there as well
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which is made out of the back box, just from a scrapyard. I started off in my back garden
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I basically cut the back of the old taxi off, built a timber frame and then started to construct
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the new shape of the van around that timber frame using dye bond and expanding foam that was finally covered in fiberglass Built the taxi van in seven days The reason it was done in seven days I had seven days free I needed a van
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That was all the time I had, so it had to be done. So inside the van, first off we've got the seats
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It's the rear seat out of a 1974 Rolls Royce silver shadow
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And that just went in really easily, just fitted like it was meant to be
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Under the bonnet of the van, it's a really big, heavy bonnet
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2.7 Nissan engine that loads of London taxis had. So the paintwork on the van is
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it's sort of a fake rust paint, and then it's got some white
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and then that was all tinted over with 2K matte lacquer. At the moment, I've only ever really been up to about 64, 65
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but I'm hoping to break that magical 65 barrier over the next couple of weeks
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probably on a nice downhill stretch of road. Whole process start to finish
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came in at just over a thousand pounds. The taxi, I got the taxi for about 450 pounds
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It's probably the most usable vehicle I've built. A lot of people smile, people wave
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people come up, ask a lot of questions about the van. You know, but it always starts every morning
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It always works and carry loads of junk in the back and that's probably all you need from a van really
