Metro-Cammell Weymann had built the Beardmore taxi until 1966, and a prototype of its own replacement was spotted on test in Westminster as early as 1970, but it took until 1987 to reach production. The Metrocab had a galvanised steel chassis, a glass-fibre body and a particularly low floor, making it the first black cab accessible to wheelchair users. It used a Ford Transit diesel engine and borrowed its lights, grille and dashboard from Ford and Austin Rover cars. Deliveries began in February 1987 at £13,950.
Reliant, a major supplier of Metrocab parts, bought the business in 1989. The Series II of 1997 brought a new grille and bumpers, and the Metrocab was the first taxi to have disc brakes as standard, from 1992; it also offered seven seats. Prince Philip sometimes used an LPG-powered Metrocab in London, and ambulance services in London, Wales, Yorkshire and Berkshire used them for patient transport.
In 2000 the revised Metrocab TTT arrived with a Toyota turbodiesel and no more glass-fibre bodywork, and ownership passed to Hooper and then to Kamkorp. Production stopped when the company went into administration in 2004, restarted at about one cab a week in 2005, and ended for good in April 2006.
