Don't spare the horses

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Follow that cab

“It’s on the meter” is a story that, for some very good reasons, is three years late in the telling.

First when it started Torque didn’t exist. And when it finished we still didn’t exist. Since then we’ve been waiting for the release of the book that would fill in the gaps, of which there are many because the tale is simply too big to be told here in Torque. Unfortunately the the book took a lot longer than anticipated to get to print. But now it is we’ll give you the top line.

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In 2011 three mates decided to drive a 20 year-old black taxi called Hannah around the world. They drove over 43,000 miles and filled the tank to the tune of 8000 litres of diesel.

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They spent 15 months travelling through over 50 countries and in the process set two new World Records. One for the longest ever taxi journey (we’ve all had one of those) and also one for highest ever journey by taxi (and they weren’t talking about the tip).

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They were also jailed in Moscow, made friends with a double murderer and got kidnapped by the Taliban. So all in all it was pretty uneventful.

Why did they do it? Well like so many ‘bright’ ideas, it started under in influence of alchohol. Apparently one night when on there way home from a session, the three student friends, Johno Ellison, Leigh Purnell and Paul Archer, were in the back of a cab. As you do they started looking at the meter wondering how much it was going to be. That for some unknown reason got them round to wondering how much would it be if you went round the world. The rest as they say is history…

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Now as we said at the beginning, this story is too big to be told here in Torque and if we did, you wouldn’t buy the book. So we’re going to stop right here and point you in the direction of this link.

Needless to say, we’re pleased to have played a part in this epic as the boys were looking for sponsors before setting off on their odyssey. Naturally they wanted glow plugs they could rely on no matter what they encountered…needless to say we were happy to oblige.

Tags: , Published on 30th April 2016