THE AUSTIN PEDAL CAR STORY
I should declare a vested interest, because I’ve had a lifelong fascination for the Austin J40. From wanting one as a boy, via riding on them in retro fairgrounds, to delving into their fascinating story, they have always captivated me. So much so that I’ve twice written J40 articles for C&SC. And when I set out to research those stories, there was only one real source, ‘the bible’, a slender 80-page A5 paperback written by David Whyley.
David is a Longbridge obsessive, an active Austin Counties Car Club member and owner of numerous classic Austins, not least the superbly restored ex-Stargazers album-cover A90 Atlantic (C&SC, January 2023). He’s also the leading expert on the Austin J40 pedal car and its Pathfinder Special single-seater sibling, so when the Burlen team relaunched Austin Pedal Cars (formerly The J40 Motor Co) and wanted someone to write an extended biography of the smallest cog in the Austin machine, David was the obvious choice.
The fact that this is a ‘manufacturer-backed’ production made me approach it with trepidation, but my fears were unfounded. The car’s recent history is covered in detail, as it should be with the renewed fever for these small-scale classics driven by the success of the Settrington Cup races at the Goodwood Revival – which get a chapter, as does the company’s rebirth and the creation of the new Continuation model. But the real charm of the book – and the car itself – is the backstory, and that is thankfully the main thrust of the narrative.
David’s deep knowledge of the subject is aided by interviews he conducted in the 1990s with key personnel, many now no longer with us. After a foreword by Mike Sheehan, factory manager from 1952-’54, he delves into the project’s origins in post-war support for wounded staff returning from the battlefields. Inspired by the late Lord Austin, boss Leonard Lord hatched an idea that was a brilliant combination: commercial nous, in getting kids on the first rung of Austin ownership; innovative thinking, in reusing offcuts from the production of full-size cars; and old-fashioned philanthropy. Initially to have been built at the pioneering Longbridge Medical Rehabilitation Centre, the cars eventually went into production near Bargoed, South Wales, with a workforce made up of miners suffering from pneumoconiosis, a lung disease caused by inhaling coal dust.
The story of the prototype J40, and the spin-off Pathfinder based on the Austin Twin Cam racer, is followed by the road to produ
