Nissan’s NV200 London Taxi revealed in production guise

The Nissan NV200 Taxi for London has been revealed in production guise – complete with ‘Black Cab Nose’ ahead of an on-sale by the end of 2014.

The lack of investment in the traditional London Taxi has left the door wide open for competitors, and Mercedes has made a good pitch with its Vito Taxi.

But perhaps the most promising option for London Cabbies is the new Nissan NV200 Taxi for London – previewed over a year ago – which has now been fettled enough to be rolled out in something very close to production guise.

Designed by Nissan’s London Design Studio, the NV200 Taxi for London is very similar to those Nissan has produced for other iconic taxi hotspots round the world – like the yellow New York Nissan Taxi – but comes with a bit of a pastiche of the traditional black cab’s nose with a new grill and round headlights.

Unsurprisingly, the London NV200 Taxi fulfils the guidelines for London Cabs, with its 7.6 metre turning circle and room for a man to wear his top hat , and has had input from Boris’s office and TfL to make it a very decent offering.

With a 1.6 litre petrol engine, economy on the right side of 40mpg, massively lower emissions of NOx and particulates than the average London Taxi and a price expected to be around £30k, the NV200 London Taxi seems a no-brainer offering for London’s cabbies.

And they’ll be able to grab a new Nissan London Taxi by the end of the year from a  dedicated outlet from Glyn Hopkin in Canary Wharf when they’ll no doubt also be offered some very appealing finance deals to tease them out of their traditional cabs.

We may not like the loss of the historic black cab, but the Nissan London Taxi looks set to take the lion’s share of the market once it launches at the end of 2014, and when the electric e-NV200 London Taxi arrives a year later, we can’t see how the current taxi will survive.