We all have memories from childhood that stay with us for life. One of mine is being locked in a toy cupboard by my 17-year-old sister in a bid to make me eat scrambled egg while she was supposed to have been in loco parentis.
I was four and, as the egg became colder and more congealed, all I could think about was how much it would hurt if my yellow Austin J40 pedal car fell off the shelf and landed on my ringlet-covered head.
The cupboard, a converted loo, was so small and so full that avoiding serious injury would have been impossible. And if you’re picturing the four-year-old me as a simpering little wimp, you ought to know that a J40 weighs 43kg.
These were not so much toys as proper, miniature cars that happened to move under pedal power. More than 32,000 were produced between 1949 and 1971 by disabled coalminers in Bargoed, Wales, using remnants of pressed steel left over from the actual Austin car factory in Longbridge, Birmingham.
With leather upholstery, proper tyres, electric lights, a parping horn and a pretend engine with real spark plugs, J40s might have been based on the humble Austin A40, but they were the absolute Rolls-Royce of pedal cars and cost a not inconsiderable £33 (the equivalent today of more than £1,450).
Advertisement
But as cheap foreign equivalents made from lighter, rustproof, less sharp and generally more resilient plastic flooded the market during the 1970s, so the high-quality J40 was abandoned by the wayside. Some ended up on fairground rides, some were shut in damp sheds to rust in peace and others were wilfully scrapped until only half of the original number remained.
The founding of the Austin J40 Pedal Car Club in 1983 helped in saving the remainder, but it wasn’t until 2012 that these relics of childhoods past were really put back on the map.
That was when the Duke of Richmond (then a humble earl) introduced a children’s race at his annual Goodwood Revival motorsports gathering — named the Settrington Cup.
Designed specifically for J40 pedal cars, the initial Settrington Cup attracted only a handful of entries — but its popularity snowballed after the first edition, and now two races fielding grids of up to 70 cars are held during each Revival weekend.
This renaissance inevitably sent values soaring as the well-heeled owners of classic competition cars began to snap up original J40s in which their youngsters could compete.
Advertisement
That, in turn, spawned a business called Austin Pedal Cars of Salisbury, Wiltshire, which will find, restore and sell you an original at a starting price of about £7,000.
Nine months ago, however, the firm tested the market for an all new version with 49 “continuation” J40s that look like the originals but are made using modern engineering techniques and state-of-the-art production methods — and cost £25,000 apiece.
All 49 have sold, and at the Savile Row Concours classic car show in May Austin Pedal Cars announced a project to build an unlimited number of cars to individual specifications at a starting price of, wait for it, £50,000.
The bespoke service was launched with the unveiling of a J40 with an interior tailored in high-end Holland & Sherry cloth, which has also been used to trim a range of special accessories including a leather satchel and a tool roll.
“The original 49 cars we made to honour the start of J40 production in 1949 sold out quickly to buyers all around the world,” says the sales manager Matthew Merriman.
Advertisement
“The new, bespoke programme enables customers to choose from an almost unlimited colour palette and a wide range of interior finishes — including Holland & Sherry cloths. They also have the option of specifying custom elements for their car, and we can even create unique bodywork,” he says.
But if you’re thinking of entering your beloved child in September’s Settrington Cup behind the made-to-measure steering wheel of his or her very own, bespoke J40, think again.
“Unfortunately, only original J40s are eligible — the new cars are so well engineered, so much lighter and so much easier to pedal that they run rings around the old ones.”
But I bet it would still hurt if one landed on your head …
This year’s Goodwood Revival, incorporating the Settrington Cup, takes place at Goodwood Motor Circuit, Chichester, West Sussex, September 6-8; goodwood.com
