The Little Car Company
You probably wouldn’t put your young kid behind the wheel of a Bugatti or Ferrari, but that’s exactly what The Little Car Company wants you to do. The British firm builds “junior cars,” rendering the world’s most sought-after vintage vehicles in slightly shrunken form. These drivable, fully functional scaled-down sports cars are perfect for sharing the joy of vintage motoring with your children—or your inner child.
Each Little Car model is built in partnership with the automaker, ensuring that every last detail is faithful to the original. The company’s three-quarter-scale Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa J wears body panels hand-hammered over wooden forms, exactly how Ferrari built the original in 1957. The two-thirds-scale Aston Martin DB5 Junior can be configured with (mock) machine guns that pop out from behind the headlights, just like 007’s. The three-quarter-scale Bugatti Baby II features a solid silver Bugatti badge identical to the one found on the full-sizer. The 85-percent-scale Bentley Blower Jnr wears the same racing number and paint scheme as the car that thundered around the Le Mans race course in 1930.
Little Cars are modernized in one key way: each one is powered by an electric motor. But with suspension designs that exactly replicate the original sports cars, these Lilliputian runabouts faithfully recreate the thrill of the drive. And they’re fast. Some models are capable of 60 mph, though you can dial back the power for a younger driver.
Two of Little Car’s models are street-legal in the U.S.: the Tamiya Wild One Max—a scaled-up version of the legendary 1980s radio-control toy car with room for two adults—and the Bentley Blower Jnr. Like a golf cart, either Little Car can be driven on local roads at speeds up to 35 mph. Unlike a golf cart, you’ll look positively dashing behind the wheel.
Precision comes at a price, which ranges from $45,000 for a Wild One Max to as much as $115,000 for the Bentley Blower model. Then again, Little Car may seem like a bargain considering the original Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa that recently fetched nearly $40 million at auction.
