PEEL P50

Simon Costain
UK Heritage Holiday Island
2 min readJan 11, 2017

Birthplace Of The World’s Smallest Production Car

The Peel P50 was a three-wheeled microcar originally manufactured from 1962 to 1965 by the Peel Engineering Company on the Isle of Man. It was listed in the 2010 Guinness Book of Records as the smallest production car ever made.

It had no reverse gear but a handle at the rear allows the very lightweight car to be physically manoeuvred when required.

Designed as a city car, it was advertised in the 1960s as capable of seating “one adult and a shopping bag”. The vehicle’s only door was on its left side and equipment included a single windscreen wiper and one headlight. Standard colours were Daytona White, Dragon Red, and Dark Blue. The 1963 model retailed for £199 when new (about £1,400 in 2010, or $2,200 USD). The company produced 50 P50s and only 27 are known to still exist, one of which was sold for a record US$176,000 at a Sotheby’s auction in March 2016.

In 2010, Peel Engineering Ltd in England started re-manufacturing the P50 and Trident models from its premises in Sutton-in-Ashfield, England.

Externally this car is very similar to the original but with mechanical differences in the suspension, steering, and drive-train, as well as a fully functioning reverse gear, ensuring they are road legal on today’s roads.

Petrol models with a 49 cc, four-stroke motor are being produced, as well as electric models with an electric moped motor and gel batteries. The top speed of both cars is about 28 mph (45 km/h), and retail prices start at £10,399 + VAT (EU only.)

The car is also being reproduced by P50cars.com in Erith, Kent. http://p50cars.com/ These cars a very close to the original car with custom reproduced lights switch gear etc. Retail price of approximately £8559 for a factory built car.

Source: Wikipedia

Visiting Peel?: Stay at Albany House Bed & Breakfast http://www.manxbedandbreakfast.com

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Simon Costain
UK Heritage Holiday Island

Promoting collaborative economy & crowd-created place marketing #hospitality #destinations http://www.webpresence.im