Question
I was just watching Jessica Jones and noticed the cab she was riding in was number 86Z5. Immediately afterwards I watched an episode of The Leftovers set in NYC, and one of the characters also hailed cab 86Z5. Is this just a coincidence or is this cab number used exclusively for filming, like the 555 exchange for phone numbers?
A Google search turned up a few other examples in movies and TV:
- this Reddit post which includes a screenshot from Broad City
- an IMCDB* post which has screenshots from the film Ocean's Eight
- a script from the series White Collar
*Internet Movie Car Database
Answer
NYC yellow cab medallion numbers are always of the form #L## (where # is any digit and L is a letter), or sometimes #L##ʟ (where the second, smaller ʟ indicates re-use of a medallion number). 86Z5 is ##L#, i.e., not a possible medallion number.
The “new” green cabs for outer boroughs have a different scheme I don’t recall off the top of my head, but I’m pretty sure it was 5 characters long. And anyway I’ve never seen one of those in a show, so it probably doesn’t matter.
(Source: native New Yorker.)
As for why 86Z5 was re-used in these two shows, Tetsujin is almost-certainly correct that it is because the physical car offered to studios for this purpose exists with this particular fake medallion number and it’s not like whoever owns it creates a new medallion for every job. You’re probably looking at the same actual vehicle, not just the same medallion, in those two shows.
Answered By - KRyan
