Scootacar

The Hunslet Engine Company of Leeds built railway locomotives. Why it built a bubble car is told as a story, and only a story: a director’s wife is said to have wanted something easier to park than her Jaguar.source 1source 2source 3 The man who made it was Henry Brown, who had already designed the Rodley and joined Hunslet as its new-products manager. Within a year he had a four-wheeled prototype, but its Anzani engine overheated badly.source 1source 4

What followed was drawn round the driver. Brown sat on a Villiers engine and an assistant chalked an outline around him, and that became the body.source 1source 2source 5 It was about 1.52 m (60 in) high, 2.21 m (87 in) long and 1.32 m (52 in) wide, taller than it was broad, and for that height, and the red paint of many, it was nicknamed the telephone box.source 1source 3 The Weiner museum saw an angelfish in its outline.source 2

Astride, behind the handlebars

The Mk1 went into production in 1957 as a three-wheeler: two front wheels, and a single rear wheel driven by chain from a 197 cc Villiers 9E two-stroke under the seat.source 1source 4 The glass-fibre body was moulded in two halves joined down the middle and sat on a steel platform with a steel floor, with one big door on the left.source 4source 2source 6 Inside, it was laid out like a scooter. The driver steered with handlebars and sat astride a bench, and the passenger sat behind or squeezed in alongside.source 1source 2source 3 The gear lever was on the right: first was forward, second to fourth back.source 7 The whole seat lifted to reach the engine and battery.source 7

For £10 more you could have a reversible engine, started backwards by its Dynastart, which gave as many gears in reverse as forwards; it later became standard.source 7source 8 A spare wheel cost £4 15s.source 8 The tail lamps were special LEP units with a clear window for the number plate, fitted to no other production vehicle, and the wiper motor was LEP’s too: the Peel P50 used a 6 V version of the same motor.source 1 In 1958 Grace’s Guide listed Scootacars simply as a maker of glass-fibre light cars.source 5 The car was well built, with a sturdy chassis under the plastic, and qualified for the low band of road tax, and it reached about 80 km/h (50 mph).source 4source 1source 3 Despite its five-foot height, says the Weiner museum, it handled extremely well, and it had one of the largest parcel shelves of any microcar.source 2

Bonnet, cab and boot

In 1960 came the Mk2 De Luxe, redesigned from stem to stern. It had a bonnet, a cab and a boot, the engine under a plush, angled rear bench and the driver on a chair that tipped forward, with seats for three.source 1source 2source 9 It was priced at £365 to fight the Mini, launched at £496 on 26 August 1959, and Mk1 prices were cut at the same time; English Wikipedia gives the Mk2 £275.source 8source 1 It reached 89 km/h (55 mph) and appeared too late to sell in numbers.source 1source 2

The Mk3 De Luxe Twin was announced in 1961 and priced at £377 in 1962. It looked like the Mk2 except for two air intakes under the rear bumper, and its 324 cc Villiers twin took it to about 109 km/h (68 mph), among the fastest of the small three-wheelers. Lane says it was offered in blue or silver-grey, with a red interior.source 10source 8 Motor Cycling tested it on 7 December 1961 and Small Car in January 1963, both using the same car, 3573 UM, and both testers enjoyed it; Brown himself told the registrar more than once that it was over-powered and could be dangerous to drive.source 8 Only about 20 were made.source 10source 8 The Weiner museum says instead that a 250 cc twin went into about 50 cars, but the register and both Wikipedias give the 324 cc twin.source 2source 8source 1source 6

Prices fell again in 1963, and production ended in 1964, or 1965 by the register’s history page. The Mini and the other economy cars had won.source 1source 3source 8 By the late 1960s a Scootacar was worth about £50, and the register’s founder bought his Mk1 in 1979 for £70.source 8 One went much farther than the shops: Nel and Peter Motte drove theirs to Istanbul and wrote a book about it, Balkan Roads to Istanbul.source 9

Henry Brown, a Horsforth engineer and former RAF man, designed the Rodley first.source 11source 12 The Rodley Automobile Co. Ltd was registered in January 1954, and the prototype was developed at the canal-side works at Rodley, near Leeds, of the Castra Electric Washing Machine Company, in which Brown was a partner.source 12 It was nothing like the Scootacar: a steel two-door saloon on a welded box-section chassis, 2,775 mm (9 ft 1¼ in) long, with a fabric roof panel that rolled forward, advertised as a four-seater though the rear seats were cramped.source 11source 12source 13 A 750 cc air-cooled side-valve JAP twin, cooled by a directly driven impeller, drove the rear wheels by chain through a friction differential, and the steering worked by chain too.source 11source 13 English Wikipedia and Grace’s Guide put the engine at the back; German Wikipedia puts it at the front.source 11source 12source 14

The brochure claimed 89 km/h (55 mph), and at £210 before purchase tax it was the cheapest four-wheeled car on the British market. It was meant to be built at 50 a week.source 11source 12source 13 Instead it became known for overheating, sometimes until it caught fire.source 11source 12source 15 In July 1955 talks for a southern company to take the firm over fell through, and by August it was in liquidation, which makes the 1956 end date sometimes given unlikely.source 12 By the usual count 65 were built, or about 50 by another, and one is believed to survive.source 11source 15 Describing Brown’s first prototype for Hunslet, the Weiner museum says it had none of the obvious disadvantages of his first attempt.source 4

The Scootacar Register has been run since the 1980s. It has about 75 members around the world and records of 150 cars, of which 120 are still known; it publishes a newsletter, Scootabout, and supplies parts; its website even has pages on a Scootacar toy and on Scootacars at weddings.source 16 Thirteen Mk3s are known.source 10source 8 For the Mk2 the counts disagree widely: 43 survivors by the Weiner museum’s reckoning, about 12 by RM’s catalogue, and neither says how it counted.source 2source 9 The registrar values all three marks at about the same: buyers prefer the Mk1’s shape, but parts for the Mk2 and Mk3 are scarcer.source 8 A 1964 Mk3 De Luxe Twin and a Mk2 are in the Lane collection at Nashville, and the Lakeland Motor Museum shows a 1959 car.source 1source 10source 5 The Weiner museum had a Mk1 and a Mk2, and its 1960 Mk2 De Luxe sold for US$50,600 at its sale in February 2013.source 9