The noise I made when I saw it was a little embarrassing. “I don’t believe it! It’s the MetroKing” I cried out as we approached the parking lot and saw a vehicle I assumed was either long ago destroyed or squirreled away in a barn. My wife and daughter are used to this happening–not finding rare taxi prototypes, but me seeing random cars and getting excited. My daughter’s friend, her friend’s mom, and her friend’s little brother didn’t know what to think.
I tried as quickly as I could to explain that this is the strange MetroKing Taxi concept that Mercedes wrote about earlier this year. And this wasn’t just one of the few testers built of the Chevy Colorado pickup that most people knew about, this was the rare early prototype version built on the Chevy S-10 platform.
My daughter and her friends were just trying to go to the park, and quickly vanished, racing off the swings while I tried to ascertain if my mind was playing tricks on me or if this was what I really thought it was. Even wilder, there was a clue here that I actually knew the creator of this van — a fact I didn’t realize when I initially read the article.
A Quick History Lesson On What The Hell This Is
Obviously, go back and read the post from Mercedes, as it has the most details. The short version is that Mike DiGonis was living in the New York City area and needed to pick up a friend in a wheelchair from the airport. None of the cabs he could find were accessible, so he decided he’d drive his friend home. This inspired him to design a better taxi that could accommodate more stuff, more people, and wheelchairs.
From Mercedes:
The MetroKing vehicle was the result of over a decade of engineering, design, testing, field trials, and even crash testing. Development lasted for so long that some of MetroKing’s early taxi-trucks were based on the Chevrolet S-10, the company generated 27 patents, and test vehicles clocked in over a half-million miles.
MetroKing said its history dates back to 1973 when it was launched as the MD Engineering Company. In those days, DiGonis raced cars at the Bonneville Salt Flats and MetroKing specialized in building high-speed off-road racecars. In 1991, the company rebranded to the Alternative Fuels Technologies Corporation, where it began conversions of various commercial trucks and taxis to run on natural gas. AFTCO claimed that its converted vehicles racked up over 50,000,000 miles of real on-road use and that for the decade of the 1990s, it converted more vehicles than anyone else. Building its own taxi was right up its alley.
Though a few of these cabs were built, the company seemingly didn’t get enough customers. A few of the vans were found in a junkyard, but it wasn’t clear that any running versions of the MetroKing still existed.
There Is for Sure At Least One Running Vehicle
Like a lot of parents, I spent the fall looking at my daughter’s winter holiday schedule and complaining that it was too short to make any real plans. Now that Christmas is over and we’re home, I’m starting to feel like it’s too long. Some people call this “Chrimbo,” as in the limbo period between Christmas and going back to work/school, where you either feel bad that you’re working when you should be resting, or you feel bad that you’re resting when you should be working.
To solve this problem, and to get her off her iPad, my wife set up a park trip with one of my daughter’s friends. I go to this park, just north of the city, all the time. Of course, as soon as we got there I abandoned everyone to go look at an old cab. So much for not working.
I see current Motorsports Network editor and ex-Jalopnik EIC Mike Spinelli walking at this park frequently. If Spinelli had seen this I’m sure he’d have told me, and vice-versa, so I don’t think it’s there often.
My first instinct was to determine who was driving this car. It was a cold day and the park wasn’t that crowded. My initial guess was two older gentlemen with metal detectors busily trying to find something in a grassy field. For whatever reason, this particular vehicle gives off “owns a metal detector” vibes.
But I didn’t find anyone who matched the car and, unfortunately, I didn’t have any business cards on me. My best bet was to keep my eyes on the vehicle and hope someone went up to it while I was close enough to snag them.
A thorough evaluation convinced me this was definitely a complete MetroKing prototype. The rear is set up for passengers, but I’m not going to share the photos I took because it looks like someone could be living there back there. It’s also possible the owner is just taking advantage of the great storage. Either way, it’s definitely not being used as a cab.
As you can see in the photo above and the reel below, the cab’s paint is in good shape, but the door hinges and other bits are starting to rust.
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Given that this is a prototype, it’s quite impressive to me that it’s still driving around after all this time. I’ve seen prototypes from OEMs that wouldn’t last 25 minutes in New York, let alone potentially 25 years. The cab portion has held up quite well.
While I was waiting for the owner to show up I noticed something interesting. The name, Michael DiGonis and a patent number. I couldn’t quite place it, but I realized I knew the name and maybe knew the designer.
Pulling up the patent, most of this is consistent with what had already been reported about the taxi, though there was one hilarious line in here that caught my eye:
Ordinary sedans are used for most taxicabs and livery vehicles, even though they have several disadvantages, including danger to the passengers who ride in a rear seat facing forward where they are vulnerable to injury from any head-on collision. Ordinary sedans also cannot accommodate wheelchair passengers, and they do not offer adequate protection to the driver from gunfire from the rear seat.
Man, New York in the ’90s was wild.
It seems that DiGonis intended to have “bullet-resistant” material used in the cab, as well as a tray for passing money back-and-forth, as well as an intercom. The fee for the patent was paid up until 2019 and then it was let to lapse.
I think I know why.
Mike DiGonis, Inventor And Cannonballer
One of my first jobs in the video/TV/film industry was helping with the final production of APEX: The Secret Race Across America, which is a documentary about the coast-to-coast race most commonly known as the Cannonball Run and, in particular, about Alex Roy’s attempt to set a record.
Being new to the film world, I got to do all of the worst jobs. This included writing legal disclaimers, watching the film multiple times for curse words that would have to be edited out for the TV version, self-rating the film for every country that shows films, and reviewing captioning.
It was a great education in the less interesting parts of post-production, and it meant that I watched the film from start to finish more than a dozen times. One of the stars of the doc is Mike DiGonis, who isn’t ever noted as an inventor. He’s just a guy who, along with his buddy, raced a DeTomaso Pantera across the country faster than anyone else in 1982.
DiGonis was a part of the US Express, which is the underground race that formed after the Cannonball Run ceased to exist. His observations, both in archival footage from the early ’80s and in later interviews, add a lot of color to the film.
It had to be the same guy, right? I immediately texted Alex Roy and he confirmed that DiGonis did, indeed, create the MetroKing. Unfortunately, this reminded me that one of my last jobs on the film was to confirm who was still alive and who passed away. I went back to review APEX: SRAA and right there in the credits is an acknowledgment that DiGonis passed away in 2018 just as we were finalizing the film.
The MetroKing Driver Got Away
I eventually left the cab and went to the swings with my family. As happens, two of the kids in our party fell in the mud almost immediately. As we were trying to soothe the kids, I noticed the driver of the car and her dog getting into the MetroKing. I tried to catch up to her before she left to ask her where she got it, but she was gone.
I’m sorry I failed all of you.
My sense is that the owner of this car wasn’t involved with MetroKing and that, somehow, the vehicle just ended up for sale. It is a durable and roomy alternative to a van. The passenger seat had what I now realize was a dog bed.
I did snag a little video of her driving away, so it definitely runs. I’m hoping that the car is local and I’ll see her again. If anyone else notices it in the Westchester area please let me know.
Please, I must find out who owns this so I can buy it. There are only two S-10s I’d pay a bunch of money for and this is one of them.
Okay, now I need to know the other one… you can’t leave us hanging like that.
Grumman LLV, of course!
Love the handle, my father would wear the same type and size of shoes. lol
I’ve got an ’01 from AZ with no rust and all the original paperwork.
I think you should. This is the type of vehicle that belongs in this type of family. BUT, I bet the current family is pretty happy, otherwise it wouldn’t be getting driven. Imagine if they hated it, and had no idea you existed. That would be tragic.
I ran a CARFAX report on it. It is currently registered in New Rochelle, NY and it had 32,861 miles on 9/26/2024. I don’t know if you can reach out to me via private message here somehow, or email, but I can tell you where the vehicle has been serviced. Perhaps you can call the shop and leave your info with them, maybe they can pass it along to the owner.
You can clearly see the license plate in Matt’s video…. Surely someone here can run it and find out who it’s registered to..
I don’t think that’s possible unless you’re in law enforcement.
There are a ton of websites where you can pay to look up a plate, and some are even free. No idea what kind of info they return.
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$200 a day? Gimme a break.
That is actually not that great,about 25 an hour. I would rather have a job where I don’t have to be home all day and get paid more.
I ran a CARFAX report on it. It is currently registered in New Rochelle, NY and it had 32,861 miles on 9/26/2024.
It’s giving Al Pacino in Heat…something about the rear end…
There was something similar to this built on a Panther chassis, primarily for transportation of the disabled. I think the company was called VPG. They had some success, but just like Powell in the 1950s, the business dried up when Ford discontinued the Panthers.
It was a bespoke chassis using a Ford engine, they were built in the AM General plant in Mishawaka, Indiana. VPG built them 2011-2012 and went broke, then as far as I know AM General bought the rights to it and sold it under the Mobility Ventures brand 2014-207 and they went broke too. Under both guises the model name was the MV-1, they were popular with taxi services, I see them around Chicago sometimes still.
I like the Metroking more than I should.
Also, if you don’t have a business card, just write autopian.com on a regular piece of paper LOL
It looks like there’s a picture of the plate. If you know someone who works in your state’s DMV, you can find out who owns it. That’s fairly public information that states sell on the regular.
I ride past this spot all the time when cycling from Brooklyn out to Connecticut (yes, I’m insane, thank you) — I’ll keep an eye out for it.
To keep Matt’s (and Mike Spinelli’s) lives relatively private I won’t name the park but… I’m there a lot.
I’d just like to point out that after hacking up an S-10 for this prototype, they did not make the logical choice and use the S-10 tail lights but instead those of a Dodge Caravan. Just…why?
Or, you know, just use the Dodge Caravan as a taxicab. That’s what was already being done pretrty much everywhere in the country that isn’t NYC, usually starting with a van that had been a family minivan for a few years to take the depreciation hit.
I’m also fairly certain that the door handles on the back doors are from a Lincoln Town Car.
“The MetroKing vehicle was the result of over a decade of engineering,”
I’m sorry but after a decade of ‘engineering’, THAT ugly mongrel is what they came up with???
I might have been ten years of engineering, but not ten years in a row.
It’s scary ugly.
10 years of engineering, not 10 years of design…
The crime-in-the-’90s thing (“…adequate gunfire protection…”) is fascinating to me. I lived in Chicago then, and while it’s definitely a big city with big city personal safety concerns, it never felt particularly dangerous. I’d walk around, take the L/buses/etc. at all times, and things felt mostly fine. Parked my car on the street even.
But the data now show that cities really could be fairly dangerous then, at least compared with today where things are much safer BUT we’re so much more fearful of them thanks to the internet’s constant fear-mongering.
Eh, I don’t know, Philadelphia definitely felt way sketchier to walk around in in the 90s vs the 10s, though the past few years have been sort of a retro throwback
My parents and I lived outside NYC in the 1980s and the city was sketchy as hell. We never took the subway, were inside by sundown, etc.
ymmv thing? My mother lived in walk-ups in hell’s kitchen, then later the east 40s in the 80’s, and it seemed fine when i’d go stay with her. Of course i was coming from Detroit.
speaking of which, on the rare times i got in a cab as child in the 70s in Detroit, there was always a “bulletproof” partition with a cash drawer separating the seats. i don’t think there were intercoms though, just a row of perforations up near the ceiling.
A trailblazer is better even if it’s made of fail in a crash.
As Mark Twain wrote in Tom Sawyer, “Work consists of what a body* is obliged to do; play consists of what a body is not obliged to do.”
That’s one heck of a blurry line you have there, Matt. 🙂
*He used “a body” instead of “a person”, which was the [literary] style at the time.
This looks so … French. I can imagine it with a Citroen DS nose. Very cool find. Also, is there anything someone didn’t try to make out of an S10?
I think it’s the indicator trumpets on the roof that play that up
As bodged together as it is, there was a definite attempt made at styling, which is more than can be said for the MV-1, which was entirely newly built from the ground up, so not sure what VPG’s excuse was
I saw an MV-1 street parked in Midtown Manhattan a few months ago.
Functionally, they were very good at what they were meant to do, I had one as a cab in Chicago a few times, comfy and spacious. They were just really, really fugly
The original Standard Taxi prototype had some reasoning, minimal sheet metal stampings with interchangeable panels on multiple spots on the car, but I believe the production version abandoned most of that idea but kept the looks
The problem with the MV-1 is due to the required height it’s going to be really tough to make such a vehicle look sleek. Also, there was quite a bit of “parts bin” to it, so that limited some options. I do know the brake rotors are unique to the MV-1 though.
I don’t find the MV-1’s appearance so off-putting, it’s more of a functional vehicle and it was nice that someone had given some consideration to that market. It’s too bad really that it failed. They also happen to make really good transport vehicles for people looking to haul large, heavy items on rollers, with the access ramp.
The design was far too taxi-centric though, with things like the fusebox being under the driver’s seat which was an incredibly stupid place to put it in a wheelchair-accessible van since they didn’t think of someone driving from their wheelchair because they had the taxi market in mind.
Yep, my mind immediately thought S-10 Fourgonnette.
Do you have a photo of the license plate? Run a CarFax on it and see how long they’ve owned it. Won’t tell you who the owner is but might help put together some of its history.