Taxis from Turku Finland in 1912.

[Juha Paavo Kaita]

Enclosed is a photo of the taxi caps in Turku Finland in 1912. The photo is taken in market square in the very center of the town. The first four cars from the left are quite easy to identify; Opel, Adler, Opel and Benz. Altogether there are 19 taxis. Somebody has written the names of the owners of the car and drivers on the back of the photo. I think photos like these are great documents.

Juha Kaitanen

Turku, Finland

[Guest Oracle]

My great-grandfather was a London taxi driver from 1908, starting with a Unic, having been a hansom cab (two-wheel horsedrawn) driver. In 1912 he was driving a Humjber laundaulet, and we have a photo of him in his cab.

[Juha Paavo Kaita]

Here s a photo from same area. The photo has been taken some years later (1913-1914) since the headlight of the cars have been taken off and on the taxis you see some wear. I have identified two or three Opels on the row. If you have any ideas of the makes/model/year of the rest the taxis I would like to hear from you.

Juha Kaitanen

Turku, Finland

[nzcarnerd]

The car on the left looks American and would date from 1917 or so.

[Guest Casper Friedrich]

Second photo, fourth car from left is a german NSU or NAW/Sperber. Hard to tell from this distance. I remember seeing an article about an early Finnish junkyard and NSU radiator from 1913/1914 there in a number of Suomen Kuvalehti from the 30s.

Edited November 17, 2011 by Casper Friedrich (see edit history)

[Dave Mellor NJ]

They must be daylight cabs, I only see one maybe two sets of headlights. that first car looks like the rusty Hudson chassis in a recent thread.