When thinking about royal modes of transportation, images of horse-drawn carriages or Queen Elizabeth’s beloved Land Rovers come to mind—or perhaps The King’s wine-and-cheese-fueled Aston Martin. While Prince William and Princess Kate have been seen in Range Rovers and Audis, it seems that another member of the family had a different vehicle he liked to use when going undercover in London.
Speaking to travel company Coachhop, Princess Diana‘s former butler Paul Burrell said the late Prince Philip would sneak out of Buckingham Palace in a black cab he had converted to an everyday car.
“Prince Philip had a converted London taxi,” Burrell said, noting, “It was converted to electric and very often it was parked by what we called the ‘Prince of Wales luggage door’ in the quadrangle.” The former butler, whose new memoir The Royal Insider publishes in the United States in 2026, continued that the Duke of Edinburgh “would go out in that with his personal protection office into the crowd, and nobody would recognize him.”
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Prince Philip is pictured leaving King Edward VII Hospital in 2018.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Prince Philip is pictured at a royal engagement in 2007.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The Royal Insider: My Life With the Queen, the King and Princess Diana
Prince Philip died at the age of 99 in 2021, and the Prince of Wales opened up about his relationship with his grandfather in an episode of Apple TV+’s The Reluctant Traveler on October 3. Taking actor Eugene Levy on a tour of Windsor Castle, Prince William said how growing up with Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh was “quite formal.”
“I think when we were younger it was harder to have that very close relationship, because it was quite formal,” he revealed. “But as they got older and I got older, it got warmer and warmer.”
The Prince of Wales added, “I definitely think my relationship was best with my grandparents when they were more in their sort of eighties,” explaining, “they sort of relaxed a little bit.”
Although he didn’t describe any secret London taxi rides, Prince William said the late duke was “incredibly amusing, sometimes not deliberately.” He added, “we had a lot of laughs, and he had a great sense of humor. As did my grandmother as well, actually.”