Tiny cars and huge grins | Thank Frankel it’s Friday
Andrew Frankel
I only popped in to have a quick look because it was on my way home from Silverstone. I’d planned to stay for ten minutes but ended up being there for over an hour. But then The Little Car Company’s premises at Bicester Heritage is just one of those places. You turn up expecting to be interested and amused by what’s going on there, and leave far later than expected fascinated and enthused by what Ben Hedley and his team have already achieved and nothing short of amazed by what they have in the pipeline, sadly none of which I can divulge here.
You will probably know its product already. There’s the Bugatti Baby II and Aston Martin DB5 Junior, both electrically powered, 75 per cent scale re-creations sold for prices starting at around £30,000 each and only heading upwards from there. And the very easy thing to conclude is that these are merely toys for the rich and their offspring with no greater relevance or importance than that. And there is some truth there.
But what really interested me was the fact that both Bugatti and Aston have been built not only with the knowledge but the full approval of the manufacturers themselves. Indeed the Bugatti badge on the Baby II is the same as that used on the Chiron, that on the Aston no different to an original DB5’s.
And you wonder why they might support such a venture until you go and take a proper look at them and wonder no more. They are simply exquisite, not just in the way they get every line spot on, but in the quality of the engineering underneath.
Using staff sourced from some of the UK’s most highly regarded sports and supercar manufacturers, the way they are put together, the attention to detail and the surgical cleanliness of the place shows that while many will be used as mere toys, they will be enjoyed for reasons that go far beyond what they actually do. They will appeal to people who buy exquisitely engineered wristwatches for reasons other than their ability to tell the time.
I had a quick run around Bicester Heritage in both, feeling slightly ridiculous but loving the immediacy of their controls, their instant response and the fact that, at 6ft 3in, I still somehow fit.
But I guess it’s the one after this I’m most interested in. Early next year they’ll start selling the Wild One Max, based on the legendary 1980s Tamiya Wild One kit. Once more it will be fully approved by Tamiya but this time nearly full size, able to be used on road with an optional brake lights, indicators and mirrors pack and, at around £6,000 for a basic kit, barely a fifth the starting price of the Bugatti or Aston Martin. That will buy you a 5.5PS (4kW) electric motor but it weighs only 250kg, so is good for a top speed of around 30mph even before you being tempted by the power upgrades that will also be offered. It comes with a spaceframe chassis, proper coilover suspension and Brembo brakes too, so should be brilliant at tearing around off-road too.
I wish I could tell you what’s coming next down the track because it would amaze you. All I can say is that while it may call itself the Little Car Company, its ambitions are big. And if it can keep focussed and stay on top of the quality, I suspect that all we’ve seen so far is just the start. In the meantime, just be thankful that someone, somewhere is building lightweight electric cars that are actually fun to drive. Even at 30mph…
Thank Frankel it's Friday
Little Car Company
Aston Martin
DB5
Bugatti
Baby II
Tamiya
