Old Shanghai’s Ford Taxis

Silver Cabs is probably the best known and most often recorded taxi cab firm in old Shanghai memories – Du “Big Eared Du” Yuesheng owned it reputedly. But Ford Taxis were also big in the business between the wars. The Ford Hire Taxi Company (just call Shanghai 30189) had one distinctive feature – rather than ordinary horns the cars all had very loud klaxons, little boxes mounted just outside the drivers side window.  there was a piston type switch on the top of the box and to operate it the driver leant out and depressed it. the noise was a typical klaxon sound but did make people jump and get out of the way – really, really bad pedestrian behaviour, poor driving, jay walking and generally being an idiot on the road is nothing new to Shanghai!