Unless you have millions of dollars, it’s hard to get yourself into a car with a central driving seat these days. Admittedly, it’s always been that way, but in 2024, when McLaren F1s are looking to go for tens of millions at auction, the dream seems a tiny bit further away than it used to. Thankfully, a small manufacturer in the UK, Hedley Studios (formerly The Little Car Company), has a solution: a scaled-down Bentley Blower.
I won’t blame you if you’ve not heard of Hedley Studios; it’s quite niche. The Oxfordshire, UK-based firm’s M.O. makes small, electric versions of cool old cars. Its first product was a tiny Bugatti Type 35, followed by an Aston Martin DB5 and a Ferrari Testarossa race car. All of them were built in conjunction with their respective manufacturers to exact detail. Assembled by hand in the UK, they’re sold worldwide as diddy, drivable companions to their gas-powered inspirations. They come with small batteries, sensibly potent motors, and top speeds that’ll make your eyes water if you’re not wearing goggles. The initial lineup isn’t for nipping to the shops in, though, as they’re not road-legal. This new Bentley, though, can hit the road without issue in the UK, U.S. and EU.
| Quick Specs | |
| Range | 45 miles |
| Battery Size | 10.8 kWh |
| Top Speed | 45 MPH |
| Motor Output | 15 kW |
| Price | $115,000 |
Based on the Blower in Bentley’s heritage collection, the Le Mans campaigned 1929 Team Car No. 2, the Bentley Blower Junior is an 85% scale recreation of one of the most iconic (if not wildly successful) racers ever. The original has a hulking great motor under its long ‘ol hood and a supercharger sticking out the front (hence ‘Blower’). It’s also a bit of a sod to drive - the controls are in the wrong order, the brakes are nearly 100 years old, and the gearbox requires a level of finesse that many would deem ‘faff.’ It’s also colossal. At 172 inches long, 68.5 inches wide, and 63 inches tall, it takes up a lot of real estate, but its cabin is narrow. You can fit four people in there, but make sure they’ve not had big lunches.
While smaller, the 85% scale version is still pretty huge—it’s longer than a Mk 1 VW Golf. As everything is to scale the cabin is just as snug as you’d expect, there’s only space for one person per row, so if you want to bring a friend they have to sit in tandem behind you. There are also a pair of seat belt poles, which you won’t find on the car from the 1920s, but regulations require them to get it on the road. Not dying is a good thing, so they’re a necessary evil.
Attention has been paid to ensuring every detail is a perfect facsimile of the original, with a few modern differences to compensate for the lack of engine. The box on the rear isn’t a fuel tank as it is on the car from the 20s; it is a trunk big enough for charge cables and a squishy bag. Up front the ‘blower’ doesn’t aid a gas motor, instead you unscrew the front to reveal a charge port. You charge through the ‘charger. On the footrest, there’s a button to sound an alarmingly loud old-timey horn. Its dials show charge rather than fuel levels, there’s a screen for useful info, the gears are selected on a suitably old worlde dial, and drive modes are switched via a big wooden knob.
In place of an ICE lump is a 15kW motor hooked up to a 10.8kWh battery that takes four to five hours to charge—no fast charge here fully. Hedley Studios says that’s enough for about 60 miles of range in ideal conditions, but they reckon it’ll manage around 45 miles in the real world. It’ll top out at 45mph, too. The reason for the somewhat restrained power and top speed isn’t because the engineers lack imagination but because any more would classify it as a proper car, and with that comes lots of very boring regulations. In this guise, it’s a quadricycle—like a Renault Twizy or Citroen Ami, only more exciting—and as such, what it can do is limited.
Setting off is easy enough. I put my foot on the brake, selected drive, and glided away. Under 20 mph, it gives off an ethereal whirr to let people know that something is coming towards them and they might be turned into paste if they’re not careful. It was a smart move, but once people clocked a silly man with a big grin driving a tiny tank, they tended to whip out their phones for a quick picture. That happens quite often, because when do you ever see anything like a Blower? And even at 85% scale, it’s pretty imposing. Many people asked whether it was real and looked surprised when they were told it was electric.
It has three drive modes, but Sport is where it’s at. Modest power means you’re unlikely to leave massive number elevens at every set of lights, it picks up pace briskly—enough to surprise London’s cabbies at least. The brakes take a bit of getting used to as they require a bit of effort, but I got the swing of ‘em after a few miles. Steering is light, and the massive rope-covered ‘wheel is a joy to hold, though its massive spokes occasionally obscure the speedo, so I couldn’t easily see how quickly I was going. It wouldn’t be a problem on private land, but in speed camera-happy London, it was a touch unnerving.
You get a neat take on what the real thing’s like to steer without worrying about bending a multimillion-dollar vintage race car. The turning circle’s pretty tight, but I was wary of asking too much of it—the wheels are shod in old-school Blockley tires, which, as well as being narrower than a very narrow thing, come with small contact patches. I worried that if I went too hard, I’d peel them off the rims. With the speed on offer and the fact you’re likely to only really take it around town, not driving it like you’re at Le Mans in the 1920s is probably for the best.
Being a faithful recreation of a very old car, it has period-accurate suspension. It’s fine on London’s flat, occasionally cracked tarmac, but it compresses and springs alarmingly hard when you hit a bump. If the driver’s not paying attention and hits a bump hard enough, anything in the rear seat would likely be thrown out of the car. Buckle up, chums.
The short spell I had the Blower Jr I ventured into a drizzly, gray, chilly London. Usually, in a car with no roof, this would be cause for misery, but the Blower brought joy. I was laughing like a drain, buzzing from light to light, bend to bend. People in the back of cabs were waving, school children delighted in having the horn blaring at them, and many people asked questions as I trundled by. Because of its central driving position and pleasingly tactile wheel, I felt, ever so slightly, like I was in some sort of (low-speed) road rally en route to some kind of victory parade. Few cars bring both drivers and pedestrians such joy. When I stopped to take pictures, a couple of tourists stopped by to ask questions, and I invited them to sit in it. Days were made, smiles plastered on faces. Happiness is what the Blower Jr has in place of horsepower.
I imagine right now you’re thinking that you quite like the idea of one of these to blast around town. I don’t blame you. Bar the suspension being of its era, I was mentally finding somewhere safe to store one. Much like the rear of the car after a speed bump, I was brought back to earth quite violently when I remembered how much it cost: $115,000 (£90,000). It being road legal compartmentalized it into ‘car’ territory, and because it’s smallish, I forgot what Hedley Studios makes: hand-built, exquisitely crafted replicas of big, expensive cars. They’re a fraction of the price of the cars they ape, but a fraction of a big number is still, sadly for us mortals, a big number.
Unlike its siblings, you can use this to get around, though, and in the process, you’ll have an incredible time. A decade ago, the idea of making something like this would have seemed foolish - it’d come with a tiny gas motor that wouldn’t feel quite right, require tons of maintenance, and be a bit naff. With electrification, we, or the suitably well-off, can get around in style without worrying about such things. And this is a hell of a way to do it.
