It’s the end of an era that many of you probably thought ended years ago: The Ford Crown Victoria’s time as a taxi on the streets of NYC is coming to a close, as the last two cars still eligible for duty are aging out.
New York City has a rule that taxis cannot be more than seven years old. The last Crown Vic tolled off the assembly line in late 2011, making the two elusive people haulers well out of compliance. They’ve remained in service due to “missing” their appointments with the inspector due to financial hardship, and both have accumulated several hundred thousand miles in the process.
Ravinder Sharma’s 2011 Crown Vic has more than 550,000 miles on the clock, while Haroon Abdullah’s 2013 has 491,000. Those mileage numbers are a testament to the cars’ insane dependability and mountains of readily available, mostly affordable parts. Their thirsty V8 engines aren’t the best for fuel economy, but the robustness of the cars’ construction made them ideal candidates for abusive jobs, such as police work and taxi service.
Though it’s impressive that the two drivers have managed to keep their extremely high-mileage cars on the road, evading the authorities in the process, their time is limited. Neither vehicle will pass an inspection and could net their owners hefty fines and other penalties.
[Image: elbud via Shutterstock]
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