Easily one of my most interesting jobs in recent times, I was contacted by a company called Autogas who are the leading suppliers of  liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in the UK. Their newest project is to convert black cab taxis to run LPG and unless you’ve never seen or been near a black cab you’ll know they use really dirty diesel engines but Autogas take regular car engines, convert them to use LPG gas which is supplied by certain Shell forecourts and it supposedly saves on emissions and builds on economy.

Don’t quote me on this but I believe the taxi I ran in used something like an Astra or Vectra engine that had been de-tuned and converted to run LPG and it was genuinely a really nice vehicle to sit in. It clearly accelerated better than a regular black cab and engine-wise it was a lot quieter.

So the gentleman who contacted me and works for Autogas lives in Perth and didn’t know Edinburgh very well (he’s not a taxi driver per se) so we met by Edinburgh Castle where we were very quickly turned away (need to get a permit to take any commercial photos anywhere near the castle) and as I know Edinburgh extremely well nowadays we did a run of locations that I think look really cool, would attract tourists and locals would recognise.

Autogas wanted a mixture of stills and actions shots (sadly we couldn’t time it so a regular black cab taxi was following our taxi) but we headed to Ramsay Gardens which is infinitely pretty, a Shell station that supplies LPG, Arthurs Seat, Scottish Parliament, the Mound, Prestonfield Hotel and a few other spots.

A note about fuel prices, I run a mk7 VW Golf R so naturally I use Super Unleaded fuel. I used to shop at Shell but the price for Super Unleaded fuel at Shell nowadays is ridiculous. The last Shell station I visited (in an emergency) around a month ago was 135+p a litre. Costco by comparison, where I do a lot of my shopping, are 122p/ltr. A big saving for the mileage I do. LPG is around 67p/ltr. A LOT cheaper.

I think we only planned to take photos for around an hour or so together and we spent roughly 2.5 hrs taking photos but it was a fabulous day and a lot of fun. Seriously people, I want more jobs like this, I really enjoyed this job. Here is a very small selection of photos taken on the day.