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The Taxi is a four-door sedan-based taxicab featured, in some form, in every Grand Theft Auto game, (with the exceptions of GTA London and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, where the London Cab and the Cabbie are the only present taxis respectively). It is manufactured by Vapid and Declasse in the HD Universe.
Distinguishable by its yellow livery, it is often one of the most common vehicles on the road. In the 3D Universe games and Grand Theft Auto V, the Taxi can be used to perform taxi side-missions.
Design
2D Universe
In Grand Theft Auto 1, there are three versions of the Taxi: the Liberty City version is based on the Portsmouth, the San Andreas version is based on the Vulture, and the Vice City version is based on the Flamer. The Taxi in Grand Theft Auto 2 is similar to a rounded Checker Taxi, with the checkered stripe crossing the roof longitudinally.
3D Universe
From Grand Theft Auto III onwards, the Taxi is usually based on the same model as the police car from its respective game:
- In GTA III, the Taxi resembles a cross between a 4th generation Chevrolet Caprice and a 1st generation Ford Crown Victoria with overall body design from the 1987-1992 Toyota Corona. There are minor variants available, with darker bumpers, and different taxi lights.
- In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the Taxi is a Ford LTD look-alike.
- In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas the Taxi is based on the Premier, designed after the 4th generation 1991-96 Chevrolet Caprice with boxy style
- The Taxi in GTA Advance has little indication of which car it is based on, but is generally more boxy in design when compared to the game's Police vehicle.
- The taxis in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories are largely identical to the GTA III and GTA Vice City renditions, respectively. The GTA Liberty City Stories rendition may appear with yellow, black or grey bumpers.
Grand Theft Auto IV
Badging on the Merit-based "Declasse Taxi Car".
Badging on the "Vapid Taxi Car".
There are two different taxi sedans in Grand Theft Auto IV; one built by Declasse, based on the Merit, which is the 2000-2005 Chevrolet Impala, and the other based on a Stanier, built by Vapid, influenced strongly by the second generation Mercury Grand Marquis, with frontal design cues more similar to a 1998–present model. The Vapid taxi shares the same body design as the LCPD Police and NOOSE Cruisers, and its chassis is not used in any non-fleet car (the civilian varient appears in GTA V). The taxis share the same rim design as the LCPD cars and NOOSE trucks.
While the Taxis come standard with regular taxi lights, some have rooftop advertisements for "WTF", "Banging Trash Can Lids for an Hour", Conjoined Twins, "The Science Of Crime", and Weazel News, both of which can detach in collisions. Both models contain a medallion on the front hood, which is used to indicate that New York City Taxi is licensed to pick up passengers; they also have a red marker on the back left. Vapid Taxis may also have yellow, grey or black bumpers.
Players can enter Taxis in GTA IV and, for a fee, take taxi rides to destinations.
Liberty City taxis are based on older generation NYC Taxis, with the minivan version bearing the same markings.
Grand Theft Auto V
The Downtown Cab Co. taxis in Grand Theft Auto V are yellow and blue in color. The taxis are a second generation Stanier.
Downtown Cab Company taxis have a very similar design to those of the Checkered Cab Company, Los Angeles.
Current Design Gallery
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Version History Gallery
(Rear quarter view)
(Rear quarter view)
Performance
2D Universe
Early renditions of the Taxi are generally undesirable due to their mediocre performance. While differing between cities and partially based on muscle vehicles, GTA 1's taxis are generally slow, but compensate with good steering. In GTA 2 the opposite is the case, with moderate speed but sluggish controls, inferior to the Taxi Xpress. Both games' renditions have moderate crash endurance.
3D Universe
Although the appearance of the Taxi between GTA III and GTA Vice City Stories varies drastically, the Taxi's performance in all the games of this era may be described as all-round average. With moderate speed, moderate acceleration, light construction, moderate endurance, capable steering and stable cornering (all traits which are helpful during Taxi Driver missions), the Taxi is generally an acceptable vehicle to drive. The vehicle is also front wheel drive, reducing the chances of tailspins when cornering and allowing the vehicle to perform 180-degree turns backwards or forward with ease.
Grand Theft Auto IV
The Declasse Merit-based taxi in GTA IV sounds to be powered by a V6, coupled to a 5 speed gearbox in a RWD layout. Acceleration is very good, and the top speed is above average. The brakes have been upgraded over the regular Merit, requiring a shorter stopping distance. The suspension has also had an upgrade, making this vehicle corner more effectively at speed. Crash deformation is acceptable, and the cab can survive a few frontal hits before failing.
The Stanier-based Taxi is powered by a 4.6L V8, coupled to a 5 speed gearbox in a RWD layout. Acceleration is good, and the top speed is above average. Its braking and suspension are very good, identical to that of the Police Cruiser; ABS is standard, and the suspension easily handles cornering and smooths out the bumpy roads of Liberty City. Crash deformation is good, and the vehicle can sustain multiple frontal impacts before failing.
GTA IV Overview
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Grand Theft Auto V
The taxi in GTA V is the second-generation Vapid Stanier, and is powered by a 4.6L V8 (however, the in-game model is incorrectly laid as an Inline-4), coupled to 5 speed gearbox in RWD layout. Like the Police Cruiser, acceleration is good, engine durability is very good, top speed is above average, and braking is acceptable. The engine of the Taxi will emit a knocking noise whilst the vehicle is idle and when the player releases the throttle after revving the engine. This is probably to show the realism of real taxis being worn down from constantly being in use.
GTA V Overview
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Taxi side missions
Main articles: Taxi Driver and Taxi (mission)
Modifications (GTA San Andreas)
The Taxi is one of only a handful of public vehicles that could be customized at a modification workshop; specially, at Transfender.
The modification options (see Transfender article for pricing) of the vehicle include:
| Type | Upgrade | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Color | Car Color 1 (64 different colors) | $ 150 |
| Hood | Fury Scoop | $ 150 |
| Champ Scoop | $ 100 | |
| Exhausts | Medium Exhaust | $ 200 |
| Twin Exhaust | $ 300 | |
| Nitro | 2x Nitrous | $ 200 |
| 5x Nitrous | $ 500 | |
| 10x Nitrous | $ 1000 | |
| Spoilers | Win | $ 550 |
| Alpha | $ 250 | |
| Wheels | Import | $ 820 |
| Atomic | $ 770 | |
| Ahab | $ 1000 | |
| Virtual | $ 620 | |
| Access | $ 1140 | |
| Off Road Wheel | $ 1000 | |
| Mega | $ 1030 | |
| Grove | $ 1230 | |
| Twist | $ 1200 | |
| Wires | $ 1560 | |
| Car Stereo | Bass Boost | $ 100 |
| Hydraulics | Hydraulics | $ 1500 |
Taxi Companies
- Borgnine Taxis
- Downtown Cab Co
- Express Car Service
- Kaufman Cabs
- L.C.C. Taxis
- Mean Street Taxis
- Sunnyside Taxis
- Vice City Cabs
Image Gallery
2D Universe
3D Universe
HD Universe
Locations
Grand Theft Auto III
- Parked in the parking lot of Francis International Airport.
- Parked in an alley north-west from the entrace of Salvatore's Gentlemen's Club.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
- Occasionally spawns in the parking lot next to the North Point Mall.
- Spawns occasionally in the parking lot near the Washington Mall.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- Always spawns around and in the main cities and sometimes in some parts of the state, as the Taxi is one of the most seen Public Service vehicle.
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
- At the Mean Street Taxis depot.
- Occasionally spawns at the top level of the Newport Multistory Car Park
- Frequently spawns in front of the Francis International Airport. When on the road headed there, instead of turning right towards the parking lot, continue going straight towards the roundabout. It should be parked next to a Freeway beside some steps, though it may not always spawn.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
- Sometimes spawns in the North Point Mall parking garage.
- Rarely spawns behind the Hyman Memorial Stadium.
Grand Theft Auto IV
Both
- Taxis are the most commonly spawning vehicles in Liberty City, and are particularly common in Downtown Broker, Francis International Airport and throughout Algonquin, especially The Triangle and Star Junction where Taxis make up the majority of road traffic. Taxis are less common in peripheral, industrial and suburban areas of the city; notably, taxis will rarely spawn in eastern Dukes and northern Alderney and never spawn in Acter Industrial Park (Alderney), and in parts of Bohan.
Merit
- A Declasse Merit Taxi may occasionally be parked on Asparagus Avenue in front of the LTA Headquarters.
Stanier
- A Vapid Taxi can be found parked in an alley near Manganese Street and Burlesque in Star Junction, Algonquin.
- A Vapid taxi is seen parked near the construction barrier in the mission Bang Bang.
Grand Theft Auto V
- Can be called to come to the player's current location.
- Can be found at the Downtown Cab Co. depot, parked in the front lot.
- Taxis can be found with moderate frequency around most areas of Los Santos.
- Can be found at the Oriental Theater, parked in the front spots.
- Taxis spawn most commonly in the Los Santos International Airport district, where they can often be seen pulling away from the curb outside the terminal buildings with newly arrived passengers.
- Taxis also spawn commonly in Downtown Los Santos.
- Taxis spawn fairly commonly across wealthy parts of Los Santos to the North and West of the city but are rarer in the poorer districts. Taxis will never spawn in the port areas in the far south of the city, and very rarely outside of the city itself.
Grand Theft Auto Online
- Like in story mode, a taxi can also be called to the player's location if they have money on hand and not 'banked'.
Trivia
General
- In the 3D Universe, the Taxi's engine sound is similar to that of SUVs and pickup trucks (excluding GTA San Andreas where it sounds more like higher end cars).
- In GTA Liberty City Stories, if the player is wasted during a mission, a taxi comes up to the hospital, and the player is prompted to get inside it. It then takes the player to the place where he received the mission.
- In some of the games in the series, Taxis' radios default to certain stations. They are as follows:
- GTA 1: Head Radio.
- GTA Vice City and GTA Vice City Stories: Espantoso or VCPR.
- GTA San Andreas: CSR 103.9.
- GTA Liberty City Stories: Radio Del Mundo.
- GTA IV: San Juan Sounds, The Beat 102.7 (Declasse Taxi); WKTT, PLR, Integrity 2.0, The Beat 102.7 (Vapid Taxi).
- Episodes from Liberty City: Integrity 2.0, WKTT, The Beat 102.7 (Vapid Taxi); San Juan Sounds, The Beat 102.7 (Declasse Taxi).
- GTA V: East Los FM and when hotwired, West Coast Talk Radio
- When the player steals a cab and enters it for the first time, $11 - $24 will be added to the player's wallet. This applies to GTA: Vice City, GTA: San Andreas and GTA IV.
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
- In GTA Vice City, Taxis have white spots on the windshield due to an error in applying the vehicle's reflection map.
- In GTA III and GTA Vice City, Taxis may spawn without their lights on top. The roof will still glow as if there was a light there when Taxi missions are activated.
- In GTA Vice City near the Escobar International Airport, billboard "Take vacation in Liberty City" can be found, showing a Taxi from GTA III. It is quite odd, because GTA III's Taxi is a 1990s car model, but GTA Vice City takes place in 1986.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, despite the Premier and Police Car being rear wheel drive, the Taxi is front wheel drive.
Grand Theft Auto IV
- In GTA IV, taxi drivers tend to be vengeful. Unlike ones in GTA V, who flee when carjacked, these drivers exit their vehicle and assault the player if he or she damages their vehicle; they may pull the player out of their own vehicles, or throw punches if they meet the player on foot. They also hold onto the player's car door while he or she attempts to escape, until the gaining speed forces them to let go or they get knocked off by an object.
- The GTA IV rendition of the Taxi originally had a black variant, as seen in the Vladimir Glebov trailer.
- The reason for removing that texture was probably for one of Niko's lines for calling taxis while drunk: "Yellow Car!".
- In GTA IV, the Vapid and Declasse Taxis have six different horns, differing in pitch with some with a high pitched, medium pitched, and lower pitched horns. The pitch determines how well and strong the horn sounds. The higher ranges usually are weak, mid-ranges usually have a somewhat over-blown or out of tune horn, while the lower pitches have healthy and loud horns. Five of the horns used can be traced back to civilian vehicles of different brands (such as Intruder, PMP 600, DF8-90, Primo, Patriot, etc.).
- In GTA IV, all Taxis (including Roman's) carry the registration insignia LC2708.
- In GTA IV, the lighted advertisement/"TAXI" signs on the roof of the taxis are very fragile as a minor collision is most cases is all it takes to dislodge the sign and have it break off the vehicle's roof. If it goes fllying straight. this can hurt and even kill civilians without granting a wanted level.
- In GTA IV, most of the taxi drivers are Greek. If a gun is pointed to them, they will say "I'm Greek, you know". They also can be heard cursing traffic in front of them with the Greek phrase "malaka", which is slang for numerous derogatory remarks.
- The turn signal in the Vapid Taxi is combined with the brake light, making it the only car in the game with a red turning light.
- If the player takes a taxi ride in GTA IV and shoots outside the car, the driver will stop the car, make a comment and then run away, leaving Niko in the back seat of the stationary vehicle. This will also happen if the LCPD are chasing the player.
- In GTA IV, when Niko takes an NPC out of the backseat of a cab, they may sometimes say, "That's my wife's car, take it!" or tell Niko it's their car.
- The Taxi based on the first generation Stanier has a brief cameo in the ingame movie for Grand Theft Auto V Meltdown which appears during the intro to the film along with the Police Patrol based on the Merit & the Cabby based on the Minivan.
Grand Theft Auto V
- In GTA V, when switching to Franklin, he will be seen being dropped off by a Taxi in front of his house while saying goodbye to a young woman in the back seat. The taxi is missing a roof sign and sometimes has no license plate text. It can be obtained by killing the driver and attempting to open the locked door, in which this taxi will respawn next to Frankin's home the next time he's there. The lady runs away and Franklin can't shoot her for some reason, but can be still killed.
- In GTA V, oddly, if you slam into the rear of a taxi with a passenger in the backseat and kill the driver in the front seat, the passenger will climb out of the backseat and flee unharmed.
- A Taxi can be seen in several screenshots and in Franklin's trailer for Grand Theft Auto V.
- In GTA V, Taxis are harder to come by than in previous games, probably reflecting the real life western United States, which sees a low demand for taxi use relative to denser East Coast cities such as New York.
- The GTA V taxi's backseat has a lot of stickers. Among these stickers is the old 255 for Liberty City Government Services sticker from the IV Taxi.
- While the logo on the trunk of the GTA V taxi says "Taxi Cab", looking at it closer at an angle shows the writing "Police Cruiser" embossed under it. This is because while the Taxi model uses a different texture for the logo, its normal map is still that of the Police Cruiser.
- Despite this, both logos appear randomized when calling for a taxi.
- In GTA V, on both backseat passengers doors, there are warnings that say "Driver carries a firearm and will use it in defense". Note that no taxi drivers in GTA V are actually armed. This may refer to the fact that you're able to do taxi missions and all three characters are armed.
- When entering a cab as a passenger in GTA V, the character may say one of the lines they normally say while carjacking someone.
- It is seen in the GTA V film Meltdown that Liberty City still use the first generation Stanier (on which the GTA IV taxi is based on) instead of the second generation Stanier featured in GTA V.
- In GTA V, if the player hops around or the rear doors are blocked, the player may ride in the front passenger seat next to the driver. Note that the cab driver still looks back as though the player was in one of the rear seats when the location is chosen, if the location is chosen again or changed, or if the cab is stopped by the player with the start/stop option.
- While riding as a passenger in a taxi in GTA V:
- If the player takes multiple trips with the same cab driver and rushes each one, the player may start yelling out of anger to go. The player also yells if the GPS location is chosen again or changed.
- If the point of view camera is on the hood view and aimed at the windshield when the driver finishes the trip, then the next time the player enters (before getting busted or wasted), the unchanged view of the dash should stay even after the location is chosen.
- It is possible for the driver to become "stuck" behind an automatic gate due to approaching it from the wrong side. The driver will stay waiting for the gate to open until the player tells the driver to hurry up, or leaves the cab.
- The player can bail out of a moving taxi, skipping out on paying the driver his fee. This will likely result in a one star wanted level.
- The driver can respond to this; "Really?"
- If the player doesn't tell the driver to hurry, the cab driver will drive much slower than other NPCs (especially on highways).
- If the player obtains a wanted level, the driver will pull over, and the player will exit. Attempts to get back in as a passenger will result in the player carjacking the cab driver.
- If the player is spotted by members of a gang that are hostile towards them (i.e. if Trevor is spotted by members of The Lost MC), they will not confront or attack the player. Instead, they will flee as if they were scared.
- If passing a random encounter involving a hitchhiker, the player can tell the cab driver to stop, allowing the hitchhiker to enter.
- If the player replays a mission, they will no longer be riding in the cab upon returning to the restore point.
- If the player tries to pick up a passenger in a damaged taxi that is missing a wheel, the passenger will not enter the car, and eventually wander off. This is most likely due to the fact that the taxi is continuously leaning over onto the ground and back off, thus simulating movement, and obviously pedestrians cannot enter the "moving" vehicle.
- In GTA Online, the players must pay the cash on hand if riding a taxi, as cash will not be paid if it's banked.
- In GTA V, if the player does not have enough money to pay the ride he will gain a wanted level and the taxi driver will likely swear at the player.
- Similar to the Bodhi or the Elegy RH8, the Taxi is listed as "
TAXI2" in the files, ommiting a "TAXI/TAXI1".
See Also
- London Cab, the British equivalent featured in Grand Theft Auto: London, 1969 and London, 1961.
- Taxi Xpress, another taxi featured in Grand Theft Auto 2.
- Cabbie, the older Checker cab-style equivalent, seen in the 3D Universe and Chinatown Wars.
- Cabby, a minivan taxi featured in Grand Theft Auto IV.
- Roman's Taxi, a custom black taxi used by Express Car Service.
- Cavalcade, another taxi used by Express Car Service.
- Bickle'76, a modified Variant of the Taxi, featured in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.
- Premier, the civilian version of the Taxi in GTA San Andreas.
- Stanier, the civilian version of the GTA IV's Taxi, which appears in GTA V.