Sutton firm gets classic Peel 50 back on the road again

Only 50 were ever produced and were priced at £199 in 1963.

But the lightweight, three-wheeled classic is now back - this time with an electric motor and a reverse gear - and is being produced in Sutton.

Grasshopper Golf Buggies, based on Mason Street, is manufacturing the Peel 50 for Peel Engineering and has an order for 40 cars which will see the company through the next year.

Robert Moor, managing director at Grasshopper said the everyone at the firm was proud of the new contract

“We are so pleased with this electric version and it has a reverse gear too,” said Robert.

“The car has everybody talking about it wherever we go and we have lots of visitors at the factory looking at it.

“We took it to the Classic Car Show and had so many people saying they saw it on Top Gear being driven by Jeremy Clarkson.”

It takes a team of four around two weeks to assemble the new Peel 50.

Grasshopper, which has a workforce of eight in total, is currently preparing for an order of ten from a crown prince in Dubai.

But that is not the only interest the Peel 50 has had, with the Discovery Channel taking it for a road test in Mansfield and Classic Car Buyer taking a spin around Newstead Abbey.

Grasshopper Golf Buggies first manufactured the Peel 50 around four years ago, with the cars being sold to attractions such as the well-known ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!’ museums.

The cars had a top speed of just eight miles per hour then, but the latest model has been increased to 28mph.

Before the Peel 50 Grasshopper’s main business was producing single seater golf buggies but took on the little car after being approached by Peel Engineering.

Now the company has a world-wide client base for the £15,000 car - with orders coming from Australia, Thailand and Spain among many other countries.

The company has now produced five of its new Peel 50s which will be going out in the next ten days.