Early 1984 Bill Wallace from Atlanta, Georgia, approached Aston Martin with an unusual request. Would Aston Martin Tickford be willing to build a special Austin Carbodies FX4 Taxi for him? Despite the unusual question Aston Martin responded positively and this was the start of a long-term relationship. Not only the building process asked time and energy, also the preparations took a lot of time seen the very specific wishes of Mr. Wallace.

According to the thick history file (4 binders!) Bill Wallace visited Carbodies on 8 March 1984, to buy a FX4 Taxi. In close contact with Grant Lockhart, Fred Reynolds and David Abraham (all three of Carbodies) was decided to buy chassis number FL2R/PL/BX/057977, a Limousine version with automatic transmission. Abrahams was also appointed as contact person to arrange the transport of the taxi to Aston Martin Tickford. This took place on 5 April 1984. Contact person at Tickford became Nigel Shepherd.

A wishing list of 11 pages with 48 specific wishes was given to Tickford. In addition, tens of pictures were handed over by Bill Wallace of various taxi’s, Rolls Royces and Bentleys to make his interior wishes clear through official factory photos. Based on these pictures Tickford made several drawings (Cad/Cam did not exist in those days yet) and after making several choices a first quotation could be send to Georgia on 23 May 1984. That quotation was GBP 26.820, excluding colour television, videorecorder and radio/ cassette player.