All I wanted for Christmas was a pint-sized Bugatti — a snip at £35,000
Baby, it's cool outside... or inside
What did the squillionaires who own a Bugatti Type 35, Aston Martin DB5 or Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa get for Christmas? It could very well have been a smaller version of their multimillion-pound classic that they were unboxing.
It sounds daft, but not to the 250 people who so far have bought one of the exquisite, handbuilt 75% scale reproductions produced by the Little Car Company.
Based at Bicester Heritage, the fast-growing home of Britain’s historic motoring industry, the Little Car Company was launched in 2019 and has made startling progress since, doubling turnover each year. In 2023 it aims to double it again, to £24 million.
Who’d have thought its small, electrically powered cars with prices ranging from £35,000 to at least £95,000 would be such a hit?
It all started with a phone call. “I owned a company making upmarket go-karts when someone at Bugatti telephoned to ask if, to celebrate the company’s 110th anniversary, we’d build them a replica of the half-size Bugatti Type 35 ‘Baby’ — the car Ettore Bugatti built for his youngest son [for his fourth birthday, in 1926],” explained Ben Hedley, founder and CEO of the Little Car Company, on our visit just before Christmas.
The car was powered by a small electric motor and was soon the talk of Bugatti’s customers, who asked Ettore to build more. In all, some 500 were produced and today around 200 remain.
For its anniversary, Bugatti only expected The Little Car Company to produce a modest replica of its founder’s Type 35 Baby, but Hedley — a former mechanical engineer — seized the opportunity to build something better.
Rather than copy an original Baby he based his replica on a real Type 35 French grand prix car, accurate to the last detail. Not only that but he also persuaded Bugatti to allow him to increase the little’s car’s scale from 50% to 75% of the original. That wasn’t difficult because Ettore himself had questioned the small size of the Baby and during its production run, the cars had gained extra valuable inches.
“Bugatti expected us to make a toy but we wanted to do it properly,” Hedley told me. The result was a mini replica robust enough to accommodate large adults, and powerful enough to entertain them, too. “They loved it.”
Encouraged by the car maker’s reaction and with Bugatti’s official blessing, Hedley launched his business making and selling what he calls Bugatti Baby IIs. Like the original, they are limited in number to 500.
They’re powered by an electric motor and lithium-ion battery pack, with three trim levels. The Vitesse and Pur Sang versions can hit 42mph.
Prices for the 75%-scale car start at £36,000 for the base model, rising to £62,500 for the aluminium-bodied Pur Sang, aimed at collectors. To date, the company has built 200 Bugatti Baby IIs, matching the number of original Babys still around.
During our visit, a few of the cars at various stages of completion were scattered about. Admiring their authentic mechanicals, exquisite detailing (the Bugatti badge is solid silver) and lustrous paint it’s easy to see why a well-heeled parent, perhaps, might wish to buy one and stuff it into a supersize Christmas stocking for their lucky offspring.
One they might like for themselves is the company’s follow-up to the Baby II, the Aston Martin DB5 Junior. Like the Bugatti, it’s approved by the respective carmaker and a faithful reproduction of the real thing, right down to its wire-spoke wheels and Smiths instruments, some repurposed for the electric powertrain.
The suspension is double wishbone at the front and trailing arms at the rear. The original, full-size DB5 was a bit floaty over bumps, so the Junior’s handling and steering have been tweaked with the aim to provide more feel and accuracy. The electric motor has various power modes but in the sportiest can produce 6.7bhp.
During my visit I’m invited to take the company’s demonstrator for a spin around the Bicester Heritage site. The former bomber base is criss-crossed by internal roads, most of them potholed, but there’s a stretch of open perimeter road, too. All are perfect for putting the dinky DB5 Junior through its paces.
It’s not especially quick compared with a car or go-kart and I wish it had a straight-six sound generator to mask the whine of the electric motor (the company won’t fit one on the grounds that it’s synthetic). The DB5 Junior’s suspension set-up also make it a bit ‘crashy’ over bumps, rather than floaty, but the steering is quick and accurate and it’s surprisingly fun to throw around.
The seats are fixed low down so, being just 5ft 9in, I can, by bending my head a little, see through the windscreen. In fact, the car feels no smaller than my old Mazda MX-5 Mk1. It’s when you get out that you realise how titchy it is.
Production of this model is limited to 1,059 copies and prices start at £35,000. A more powerful Vantage version costs from £45,000.
Parked alongside the DB5 on my return is its sister model, and definitely one for mum or dad this Christmas, the ‘No Time to Die’ edition.
The special edition convertible has been approved by Eon Productions, the company that makes the James Bond movies. Accordingly, it has all the gadgets the secret agent would expect, from retractable headlights and chattering miniguns to a smoke machine.
The top speed is 45mph and prices start at an M-trembling £90,000. Just 125 will be produced and deliveries begin this year.
Which brings us to the little car even the wealthiest parent would have struggled to give this Christmas, rather than keep for themselves – The Little Car Company’s latest creation, the Ferrari Testa Rossa J.
This 75%-scale reproduction of the 250 Testa Rossa of 1957 is based on 3D scans of the original car’s chassis and suspension, and has been officially approved by Ferrari following shipping to Modena for testing — quite a thing in itself.
Just like the other models, the quality of these parts and of the aluminium body is outstanding, and earlier in the year its engineering was put to the ultimate test Driving.co.uk editor Will Dron, who weighs 117kg and is 6ft 5in tall, test drove it on track.
Despite his bulk he found it to be surprisingly quick, nimble and “utterly joyful”. Numbers are limited to 299 and prices start at £95,000.
Away from its 75%-scale cars, in 2023 The Little Car Company plans to go large with the launch of a full-size, road-legal reproduction of model maker Tamiya’s popular Wild One remote-control buggy.
Called the Wild One Max, the open, two-seat vehicle has a tubular steel spaceframe and a roll cage and is powered by an electric motor capable of propelling it at speeds up to 65mph. It will be offered in self-assembly or completed form.
“Our aim is to create the first fun electric car,” said Hedley, with an apparent sideswipe at the growing number of EVs on the market from established carmakers. “So that it can be driven on the road, it will be homologated as a quadricycle.” Prices are expected to start at around £15,000.
The Max is still some way off but if you didn’t receive one of The Little Car Company’s scaled cars for Christmas, the firm carries a limited amount of stock for immediate despatch. For anything special or bespoke, waiting times are up to five months.
Me? I’m off to drop a few hints about that Bugatti Baby II.
Related articles
- After reading this feature about The Little Car Company you might be interested in the full details of its No Time To Die Aston DB5 Junior
- End of an era: 1,578bhp Bugatti Mistral roadster marks final appearance for firm’s W16 engine
- Bugatti puts 1,578bhp Bolide track car into production at £3.4 million
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