In the early eighties, I had an uncle who managed the fleet maintenance of taxi cabs in Los Angeles. While visiting him one summer, he offered to give our family one of his old taxis. It just had a rebuilt engine installed and it ran fine.

It was actually a Cleveland 351 motor which is awesome. Since my brother would be getting Grandma's Mustang in a few years, I asked if I could have the taxi for my sixteenth birthday. My parents said that if we still had the car, I could have it. It was sort of embarassing driving around town in that car. The kids at school would make fun of us and sometimes people would try to flag us down for a ride. All the taxi markings and decals had been removed with the exception of "Driver only carries $20" which was funny to leave on the car. It was however that unmistakable yellow color of a taxi cab. We didn't keep the car nearly long enough for it to ever become mine. I did often sit in that car and dream about having it as my own. I became a fan of Torinos and started recognizing them when I'd see one. It was too bad uncle didn't replace the transmission too. It was too expensive to repair and instead my parents ended up junking it for $250 or so. I was sad when they sold "my car."