Hedley Studios will sell you a shrunken Porsche 550 for £70k

Hedley Studios (formerly known as The Little Car Company) is back! Yep, after some money troubles earlier in the year, the Oxfordshire-based maker of downsized classic cars has returned having been purchased by its original founder Ben Hedley, alongside a group of private investors.

And it has returned with something rather exciting, because what you see up above is the brand-new Porsche 550 J. That final letter is pretty important, because it signals that this is a Junior Spyder. It’s actually built to 80 per cent scale using original production drawings and a 3D scan of a full-size 550, all with Porsche’s officially official backing.

So, underneath you’ll find a tubular spaceframe chassis (the first 89 examples of the 550 Spyder were built on a ladder frame before Porsche switched to the stiffer setup for the 550 A), while the body panels are now all hand-formed from carbon fibre composite.

There’s no flat-four engine either. Like all of the little cars produced by Hedley Studios, this is an EV. It’s not registered for road use like the Bentley Blower Jnr, but it does come as standard with an 11bhp motor, a top speed of 40mph and a range of 30 miles. Or for braver kids, there’s an optional RS Pack that adds adjustable Bilstein dampers, drilled Brembo brake discs and additional batteries. The latter allows for a top speed jump to 50mph and 50 miles of total range. Serious stuff.

We’re also told that the wonderfully recreated cockpit can seat two adults, and that the placement of the battery pack and electric motor behind the seats recreates the weight distribution of the original car. In total, the Junior weighs 330kg, or 350kg with the RS Pack. There’s also a Nardi steering wheel that replicates the original, while the choke lever has been repurposed as a drive mode selector.

Oh, and because it’s a Porsche, Hedley is offering a huge array of customisation options including the full suite of Paint to Sample colours and ‘historically appropriate liveries’. That means not many of the 250 examples will likely leave the factory for the £69,500 + taxes base price.