TAXI GROUPS TO AMALGAMATE

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27395, 7 July 1954, Page 11

TAXI GROUPS TO AMALGAMATE

BLUE STAR AND RINK DRIVERS

Twenty-five owner-drivers of Rink Taxis are merging their interests-with Blue Star Taxis. The merger, which will take effect from midnight on Sunday, will make the Blue Star fleet of taxis, with 144 cabs, the second biggest in New Zealand.

The Rink Taxi organisation was founded 75 years ago by Mr William Hayward. In 1948 it passed from the Hayward family to the Rehabilitation Department for returned servicemen to set up their own businesses as ownerdrivers. On June 1 of this year the company, which had previously been a private-hire concern, became a publichire firm. Although the taxi business of Rink Taxis (1948), Ltd., will be gone, the company itself will not go out of existence. Its garage in Chester street, originally a branch of the old Rink stables in Armagh street, will probably be leased to a motor firm under another name. Some of the Rink Taxis staff and the service and accounting systems •will be absorbed in the Blue Star office in Moorhouse avenue. , The amalgamation Is not of Rink Taxis (1948), Ltd., with Blue Star Taxis. Ltd., which operates a garage, but of Rink Taxi drivers and their cars with Blue Star Taxis Incorporated, a co-operative taxi business. .