Christie now switched his energies away from automobile racing to developing his front wheel drive New York taxicab design. With benefit of hindsight, the taxi design's importance came in large part from the fact that it incorporated a transversely mounted engine/transmission assembly, applying a basic architecture that would be greeted as revolutionary when applied by Alec Issigonis in the BMC Mini fifty years later. However, in 1909 the idea of a 'conventional lay-out' was less firmly rooted than it would have become by 1959, and for Christie the vehicle's more striking novelty lay the fact that the entire "forecarriage", incorporating all the key mechanical components, could be detached and replaced in "less than one hour", so that the vehicle could stay on the road while the engine maintenance took place. The car's radical lay-out was to necessitate the manufacture of many complex components in-house, and problems encountered subsequently by other manufacturers producing or finding a dependable universal joint make it hard to believe that the Christie vehicle was particularly dependable. Given the heavy steering resulting from the fwd lay-out and a published unit price in 1909 of $2,600, it is understandable that the denizens of the New York cab trade did not flock to buy the Christie taxi.