Austin FX4 Brougham Sedanca: a millionaire’s London taxi

By Martin Buckley

| 20 Aug 2024

Classic & Sports Car – Austin FX4 Brougham Sedanca: a millionaire’s London taxi

Sid James, Sir Laurence Olivier and the late Duke of Edinburgh all drove London taxis around the capital for the sake of anonymity.

Nubar Gulbenkian, the Turkish-born Armenian oil magnate, is probably still the most famous Austin FX4 exponent, although keeping a low profile was not part of the remit for this eccentric Harrow- and Cambridge-educated Anglophile; and it appears unlikely that he ever took the wheel himself.

Born in 1896, Nubar Sarkis Gulbenkian inherited part of his fortune from his miserly father Calouste, whom Nubar famously sued for $10million when he once refused to pay for his son’s $4.50 chicken lunch out of petty cash.

Inside the Austin’s retrimmed cabin, which now has air-con fitted

When Calouste died in 1955, most of his legacy went into a Portugal-based foundation, but the younger Gulbenkian had inherited all of his father’s business acumen and accumulated an independent fortune that easily funded his lavish lifestyle.

Like Lady Docker or journalist Gilbert Harding, this socialite, gourmet and committed womaniser appears utterly irrelevant to 21st-century sensibilities.

Yet his exploits – and his many witticisms – captured the post-war public imagination, and he was famous enough in his day to be interviewed by John Freeman for the BBC’s Face to Face in 1959.

The Austin FX4 Brougham Sedanca’s modern gear selector gives away the uprated powertrain

The legacy of Nubar Gulbenkian’s bespoke automobiles has kept his name on the radar over the years since his 1972 demise.

Evidently having engineered a day off school, I can clearly recall seeing his coachbuilt Austin on the afternoon magazine programme Pebble Mill at One circa 1973, just before it was auctioned: it made an impressive £6500.

The taxi that Gulbenkian commissioned was bodied – by FLM Panelcraft of Battersea – in the style of a horse-drawn brougham, complete with carriage lamps above the doors and faux wicker appliqué along the flanks.

From the windscreen backwards, it was designed like a miniature limousine featuring some definite overtones of a Victorian hansom cab.

The classic Austin’s elegant door trim

The driver’s area was left open to the elements, something repeated in most of Gulbenkian’s cars – “I never feel totally dry,” he once said, “unless I can see somebody totally wet” – although there was a retractable cover to save the liveried chauffeur’s immaculate outfit.

The Lalique bonnet mascot and gold-plated doorhandles added to the feeling that this was an incredibly special taxi.

Ordered through Rolls-Royce/Bentley dealer Jack Barclay, the 1960 Austin was converted at a cost of £2000.

The basic FX4 was £1000, but the fact that it retained a chassis made it a good basis for a custom body.

The Austin FX4 Brougham Sedanca has been converted to run on electric power

‘Specialist’ versions of the Austin Hire Car were not unknown: a few FX4s had been converted into hearses and there was a handful of delivery vans, too.

The Gulbenkian cab became one of the most famous cars in London, as synonymous with the ageing, three-times-married millionaire playboy as his monocle, his top hat and the orchid in his buttonhole.

It even featured, in cartoon form, on the back cover of his 1965 autobiography Pantaraxia, and was referenced in profiles of the tycoon (who also maintained houses in Buckinghamshire and the south of France) in Time and Life.

Even the Austin FX4 Brougham Sedanca’s collapsible jumpseats are nicely trimmed

Gulbenkian, who had done brave work for British intelligence during WW2 and was an attaché to the Iranian embassy, enjoyed the notoriety the taxi afforded him.

He had use of a Rolls-Royce (and a Mercedes-Benz 600, see below), but used the Austin as his town runabout for trips into the city – from his suite at the Ritz – or for transport to the many functions to which he was invited as one of Britain’s wealthiest men.

“People recognise it,” Gulbenkian said. “After a party or an opening, they come and tell me where it is, and I don’t have to wait.”

This bespoke Austin taxi has braided grabhandles

Nubar liked big, fast, expensive cars, and always had.

As a younger man, he’d reputedly driven his 36/220 Mercedes-Benz SS around Brooklands at 100mph, although this story does not quite tie in with reports that he didn’t start driving until he was 65.

After owning many rapid pre-war sports cars, he acquired a taste for Rolls-Royces in the post-war years.

He had a chauffeur called Wooster, but would often take the wheel himself or urge his driver on from the back seat – in the late ’40s he raced his chauffeur-driven Buick Super from Estoril to Sintra against an SS100 driven by the then youthful arch-cad Alan Clark – while keeping an eye on a second speedometer fitted in the rear compartment.

Original carriage lamps light up the Austin’s passenger doors

That was another favourite part of his limousines’ specifications, as were rear seats that converted into beds, glazed roof panels and leather-covered dashboards.

The truth behind the origins of the Austin are hard to pin down.

What is fairly certain is that Gulbenkian had more than one built, possibly even three.

In November 1957, The Autocar reported he had ordered a specially converted taxi through Jack Barclay.

The Austin taxi’s rear luggage trunk echoes horse-drawn broughams

A few months later, the same title revealed that the car would have a razor-edged brougham body, green cloth interior, folding front roof and Spirit of Ecstasy mascot.

‘A request for a Rolls-Royce radiator,’ the scribe noted, ‘has been turned down.’

Given that the Austin FX4 was not introduced until 1958, the first plans must have been based on the sit-up-and-beg FX3.

The Austin’s glass division separates the chauffeur’s cabin

Gulbenkian’s vehicles often had ‘NG’-prefixed numberplates: his taxi wore NG 1 in the mid-’60s, while NG 5 was supposedly a reference to his ‘Mr Five Per Cent’ sobriquet (of which more later).

This car, 778 XUC, was minted in 1960 and is thought to be the second example.

Just to add to the confusion, I’ve seen reports that his second car was actually delivered in 1966 and cost £3500.

Other contemporary mentions suggest it had a Rolls-Royce engine fitted, but I’m going to assume it was diesel-powered from the off, or possibly delivered with a BMC 2.2-litre petrol engine – although these were not used in FX4s and FL2s (the private-hire FX4) until 1962.

Crisp detailing on the Austin FX4 Brougham Sedanca

The first (or was it the third?) Gulbenkian FX4 did without the wicker sides and the stacked, sunken headlamp treatment, but appears otherwise much the same.

XUC was converted to left-hand drive after its early-’70s migration to California.

It was a no-reserve lot at Quail Lodge in 2015, still largely original (and apparently low-mileage) other than being fitted with the straight-six engine and four-speed ’box from a ’70s Ford.

Auctioneer Bonhams stated at the time that XUC was the only surviving Gulbenkian taxi, and that this car may have been commissioned by Nubar for his friend Paul Mellon.

The Austin FX4 Brougham Sedanca’s passenger compartment includes a vase and vanity mirror

The story is difficult to prove, but the American banker is said to have wanted to buy the one-off cab on sight, but Gulbenkian wouldn’t part with it.

Today, the taxi is part of new Hyde Park hotel The Peninsula London’s fleet of 13 vehicles, which also includes a Rolls-Royce Phantom II and variety of modern luxury machines, all painted in the group’s famous Brewster Green (now labelled Peninsula Green) livery with gold pinstriping.

Labelled the hotel’s ‘quirkiest and most playful choice’, it is part of a tradition of interesting vehicles associated with The Peninsula, which famously ordered 13 Silver Shadows in the ’70s for its Hong Kong outpost.

A cartoon version of the Austin taxi graced the back cover of Nubar Gulbenkian’s autobiography

Like the Citroën 2CV in Paris, the tuk-tuk in Bangkok and the Jeepney at The Peninsula Manila, the Austin Brougham Sedanca – now converted to a Nissan Leaf-based battery drivetrain by London Electric Cars – will only be used for local errands rather than airport runs.

Rebuilt over six years by Ashton Keynes Vintage Restorations, the taxi retains its most obvious original features, including the carriage lamps, and has been put back to right-hand drive.

The big steering wheel and basic instrument display are true to its early FX4 origins, with just the one (driver’s) seat up front and the spare wheel under a cover on the left-hand side.

The green hue and discreet crests on the doors reveal the taxi’s new career at a swanky London hotel

The windows wind down manually and there is a sliding division between driver and passengers, who sit under a glass skylight on a well-stuffed West of England cloth rear seat; hopefully the stuffing will settle in time, to give a little more headroom.

There are jump-seats, glass vases in the massive C-pillars and braided grabhandles of somewhat obscene appearance.

As quiet and clean as it was doubtless noisy and smelly in its original guise, it’s hard to take umbrage at the electric conversion: if battery power makes sense in any motoring context, it is for inner-city runabouts such as this.

The Austin FX4 Brougham Sedanca taxi sports a wicker effect on its bodywork

Would Nubar have approved?

Certainly, of the luxury connotations of being linked to the lavish Belgravia hotel with its views of Hyde Park Corner and the Wellington Arch.

He enjoyed his wealth and knew how to live, relishing comfort and luxury in all forms.

They didn’t have heated toilet seats in his day, of course, but I’m sure he would have got used to them.

The coachbuilt Austin still explores the streets of London in 2024

Gulbenkian, who never carried any cash, appreciated the cab’s nifty 25ft turning circle – a London Hackney Carriage requirement – when he was driven around the city.

“I’m told it turns on a sixpence,” he boasted. “Whatever that is.”

He might not have encountered said coin of the realm, but he knew the value of it: his nickname, ‘Mr Five Per Cent’, was a reference to the shares in the likes of BP and Shell that Nubar (and his father) had held since helping to develop British oil interests in the Middle East, and that added up to a lot of sixpences.

Images: Jack Harrison

Thanks to: The Peninsula London (Instagram @thepeninsulalondonhotel)

Gulbenkian’s other automotive follies

The dramatic Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith ‘Pantechnicon’ was the most extreme and divisive of Nubar Gulbenkian’s restyled luxury cars

Nubar Gulbenkian’s various coachbuilt Rolls-Royces were as flamboyant as he was.

The first, christened ‘Pantechnicon’, was built in 1947 and looked like the unfortunate progeny of a liaison between a Silver Wraith and a Panzer with its spatted wheels and cowled grille.

There was at least a more traditional sliding de Ville roof over the chauffeur’s cabin – a recurring theme of Gulbenkian’s cars – but Rolls-Royce was not happy about the remodelling.

The 1953 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith Sedanca by Hooper was more conservative than some of Nubar Gulbenkian’s other cars

Hooper was also uneasy about putting its name to it, but needed the work.

Rolls-Royce specialist Frank Dale sold the Pantechnicon for £500 in the early 1960s and was probably relieved to do so.

Gulbenkian redeemed himself with his later commissions on the Silver Wraith chassis, which were more graceful yet still dramatic variations on Hooper’s standard themes.

His next, built in ’52, was a four-door cabriolet with Daimler ‘Green Goddess’-style faired-in headlamps, which was used by Queen Elizabeth II on a visit to Nigeria.

Millionaire Nubar Gulbenkian liked to have a speedometer for the rear compartment

He replaced that with another Hooper Sedanca de Ville featuring sage-green lizard-skin detailing – which included grabhandles and steering-wheel spokes modelled to look like lizards’ tails.

In 1987 it starred as Uncle Monty’s car in Withnail and I.

Perhaps the most dramatic of the Gulbenkian Rolls-Royces was the 1956 car, again by Hooper, fitted with a transparent Perspex hardtop roof.

This Perspex-topped Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith was restored from yellow to its original scheme prior to its sale by Bonhams in 2008

The oil baron had planned to use the car only on the Côte d’Azur, so inside the hardtop was an electrically operated sunshade that, along with the air conditioning, kept the interior at a reasonable temperature.

Among its many luxuries were electric windows, a stereo radio and even a television.

After Gulbenkian sold the car, it starred in a film called Les Félins (released in the UK as The Love Cage) with Alain Delon and Jane Fonda, before being sold to a Nice nightclub owner called René Gourdon in 1968.

Nubar Gulbenkian’s Mercedes-Benz 600 was modified by Chapron

Gourdon had it painted yellow and planned to rent it for film work, although it isn’t clear which other movies – if any – it appeared in.

He used it himself sometimes, posing along Monte Carlo coast roads, but by the 1980s it had fallen into disuse and languished in the basement of his club, where customers would sit in it while they enjoyed their drinks.

Decades later, one of the walls of the club had to be demolished to extract the eccentric Wraith.

The transparent roof makes this classic Mercedes-Benz 600 unique

In 1960, Gulbenkian ordered a long-wheelbase Silver Cloud II saloon and had it individualised by coachbuilders James Young and FLM Panelcraft, with quad stacked headlamps, his usual Sedanca de Ville roof and bespoke interior details.

Then in the mid-1960s he broke with tradition and commissioned Parisian firm Chapron to build him a glass-roofed Mercedes-Benz 600, having ordered a car under a false name in case the manufacturer – which had refused to do the conversion – got wind of it.

The work cost more than the price of the new car, and when he died he bequeathed the giant Benz to his gardener.

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