When you drive around in an ivory Mercedes E-Class, you risk having people wave at you to take them home. Jan Semrád doesn’t mind, he likes the taxi driver so much that he even has two.
Jan Semrád is a fan of ivory taxis. When Mercedes-Benz announced that it would stop making the beige E-Class in a special livery for taxis in 2023, it decided to buy it one last time.
“There were already so many cars entered into production that it was no longer possible to order one, so I looked for it among used cars. I wanted a sedan, of which there are even fewer. For better aerodynamics, quieter operation and elegance. I finally found one last fall in A Hamburg with 12,000 kilometers on the clock, which obviously didn’t drive like a taxi, didn’t have a taximeter connected or a working light ramp on the roof,” says the lifelong lover of the brand with the three-pointed star on the hood. At the age of twenty, he acquired a generation W123, later W124 and W126.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, he drove as a taxi driver only recreationally, with a Mercedes W211 from 2007. When he bought it in Germany, it had half a million kilometers on the odometer. “German taxi drivers usually take good care of their cars and service them better than people who have their cars for repair. That’s why I wasn’t afraid that he had a lot behind him,” he explains. He “filmed” another 370,000 kilometers alone in a car with a diesel engine.
Jan Semrád especially praises the durability of the Mercedes, which has a seemingly meaningless figure of 870,000 on the speedometer. Only the front seats needed replacement, but otherwise the interior is original. The armrest in the front looks shabby, as does the handle of the driver’s door, but the rear part of the interior has survived to this day unscathed. Probably mainly thanks to factory modifications, the car manufacturer used a much more durable material for the upholstery of the seats. The car also has stronger silentblocks and stiffer springs to withstand more demanding handling. In addition, the “two hundred and eleven” after the facelift no longer suffer from corrosion as much.
Now Jan Semrád will switch to a new model. If the old one sells, he still hesitates. However, he wants to live with the new ivory “E” and has no plans to buy another car. “With the end of beige Mercedes, the world will never be the same again,” he says with a smile, but also a little sadly.
For home use, however, its sparsely equipped taxi version probably won’t suit everyone: “I miss parking sensors or folding rear backrests, I have to get used to that. Also to how the doors open. They don’t have a lock, they stop exactly at a point when opened , as the crew opens them. It’s probably nice so that the car standing next to it doesn’t rub, but it’s also a bit unusual,” Jan Semrád describes his new beige machine with a 16-litre diesel engine.
The taxi Mercedes
The first taxi from the three-pointed star 8/38 HP began to be sold as early as 1927. The 260 D model from 1936 was even the first production car in the world with a diesel under the hood and became very popular among taxi drivers. That’s why Mercedes-Benz came up with a special arrangement for taxi service cars. The brand is still known today as one of the most widespread taxi manufacturers in the world.
The special equipment developed over time, but always included preparation for the installation of a taximeter and more durable seats or at least their covering to withstand more demanding use. And soon the ivory color called Ivory became the typical identification mark.
Probably the biggest record is held by the 240D model produced in 1976, which was owned by the Greek taxi driver Gregorios Sachinidis. The car covered a total of 4.6 million kilometers in its lifetime, including hundreds of trips to Belgrade to transport supplies during the Balkan War.
Probably the most popular Mercedes taxi in history, however, was the W123 series, which became popular as a used vehicle especially in North Africa.
A popular potluck
The ivory “Das Taxi Mercedes” first appeared in the late 1960s. It soon became a household name, the same as yellow taxis in New York or black in London. Not long ago, the automaker offered ivory versions not only for the most popular E-Class, but also for the B-Class.
But the world is changing and Mercedes has come to the conclusion that there is no longer enough interest among taxi drivers in traditional models. “While the demand for our spacious models such as the V-Class continues to grow among taxi drivers, sales of the E and B-Class have fallen by 75 percent in the last four years,” the automaker explained in the statement of the end of production.
Jan Semrád also has a beige Mercedes as a key ring. | Photo: Eva Srpová
In the typical “Elfenbein” color, you can order from Mercedes only the spacious V and Vito class, or its electric equivalents EQV and eVito. The differences of the Taxi version have remained practically unchanged for many decades: In addition to the ivory color, offered in the Czech Republic under the name Ivory, there is also preparation for a two-way radio in the dashboard and trunk, preparation for a taximeter, preparation for the taxi light marking on the roof and an additional antenna.
And above all, a traditional alarm. It alerts the surroundings when the taxi driver is threatened by a customer. There is a special button on the key, after pressing which the car starts to beep loudly and flash. You can’t turn off the noise from the car, you have to get out of it and rummage around in the trunk. Jan Semrád has never had to use it before.
Beige taxis from Mercedes are a rare phenomenon in the Czech Republic, which is also confirmed by the Czech importer. “In past years, the interest among domestic taxi service operators was really minimal. They usually preferred the standard configuration options from the factory, so they usually solved the modifications for their needs without interfering with the interior,” explains Josef Hlávka, press spokesman for Mercedes.
For Jan Semrád, the ivory color of his Mercedes also brings an obvious competitive advantage. Because it is very widespread among our western neighbors, it happens that German tourists choose it first on a Prague street. But it is quite possible that the fact that, as a fan of beige cars, he bought a tell-tale sign for his car helps him in this.
