David Cantrell gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

The Mercedes can make U-turns better, one driver told me. IIRC, it is
because the rear wheels can also turn to a degree.

It's basically a converted small van. A driver told *me* that they had
to make the rear wheels turn because otherwise the turning circle
wouldn't be tight enough. He didn't vouchsafe to me how he got this
insight into Mercedes' manufacturing :-)

Umm, he looked at their website...? (already linked to here)

Rear-steer's nothing new, of course - Honda were using it in the '80s.

He also told me that he quite liked the one he'd tried, except for one
thing - he thought that because it didn't look like a taxi, customers
wouldn't hail it.

Yep, I can see that being an issue - those sort of van conversions are in
widespread use elsewhere as minicabs - and just as Joe Public's been
thoroughly trained that in London "Black Cab" = Taxi, anything else =
minicab/not hailable/driven by unininsured perverts & rapists...