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Every time anyone sees this car, they have a huge smile on their face
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Smaller than I remember. I've loved weird cars my whole life. It's kind of a ludicrous idea
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The world's smallest car. Sometimes it doesn't start very quickly, sometimes it does
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This was my worst fear. It's red, it's rare, it's really tiny
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The smallest production car ever built. This mini-marble from the swinging 60s is the Peel P50
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The P50 came out of the Isle of Man, which is a small island between Ireland and England
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Basically, the concept was a little car that you could use in the city
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I've loved weird cars my whole life. It's kind of a ludicrous idea in the fact they only made 49 of them
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there was a gentleman in Vancouver, British Columbia that wanted to import them
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he brought in bad bird numbers 3 to 6 which is a huge number of the overall production
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this is one of those cars because it adds some special features for the Canadian market
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which makes it really special I think at just one metre high
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and less than a metre wide this really is a truly minute machine The P50 is powered by a DKW 49cc engine and has a top speed of 37 miles per hour and 4 horsepower
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It's a one-seater, one headlight. I also love how it's three wheels, so the back wheel is the one that is driving it with a chain from a little moped engine
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It's got this cool suicide door. And you have to be kind of smart to get in
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You have to bend like this. There you go. Easy as that
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Here's the gear shifter, this orange little contraption. It's three speeds. There's no reverse
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because you have to get out of the car and go around to the reversing handle
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pick up the car and turn it around, then get back in. This may be a small car, but it has a big history
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There was a Russian freighter that came into the port of Vancouver. They used it to drive around their huge freighter on the deck
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But then the refrigerator broke, so when they came back, they traded this car in on a refrigerator
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It was in this ship supply store sitting there for $100. This gentleman named Wendy bought it and brought it home for his son Don 50 years ago
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And that's who I bought it from, that family. While it was bought for a song half a century ago
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if you're lucky enough to find one up for grabs now, expect to pay big bucks
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A P50 was sold at auction in 2016 for $176,000. Peel actually made two models. This was the first one and then they built another one
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that looks like a little flying saucer and that's called a Trident and that's what I was actually after I was just playing online looking around and as I was searching I found this one It was in Kelowna British Columbia five six hours away When it came to restoring this vehicle Greg had his work cut out
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It was very complete, but I needed a number of things. The hardest part of restoring the car was just finding the parts
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and waiting months and months and months to get them from England. Once in its life, it had been chopped into a convertible
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Luckily, the roof had been kept and put back on, but there was lots of little pieces that had gone missing over that time
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We got a new door and had that fitted. I've never really restored a car from the ground up
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so this was a great opportunity for me to do that. And now, having not seen the car since its restoration
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the previous owners have come to check out Greg's handiwork. Where did you get the mirror
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It makes me want to cry. It's so adorable. It was smaller than I remember
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Same seat. Same seat? You just reupholstered it? Yeah, reupholstered, yeah. Because they used to tell us our seat was wrong
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I found another BC car. And it has that seat. Really? Yep
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So we didn't have the real one? Yes. Where did you find another BC car
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Eastern Washington. I'm a sleuth. I love it. I'm a car detective
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I learned to drive on this. At 6 1⁄2. Way before my license came on
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Straightened out all the wheels. My husband was on his way home from work one day
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and he had to pass the second-hand store, and it was sitting on a shelf in the window And he screeched to a halt and ran in and said I want that It was payday that day So no groceries but came home with a car
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Yes, no groceries but a car. I don't think you were that happy that day. No, I was going to kick him right from here to eternity
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The chrome on the inside of the engine where it breathes. I know you can't see it. It was cut like this
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We kept clipping it all the time. Couldn't get out. We couldn't get out, so he took the top off
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Every time it landed, it landed on the door. Oh, that's the windshield washer
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That is the windshield washer. And you've got it in the ashtray. That is the holder for it
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It wasn't the ashtray? It wasn't the ashtray. I thought it was the ashtray, too
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Oh, you squeezed the bottle and it fits. No way. I did drive it to school one time
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Yes. You drove it to school? Yeah, it was grade four. And at recess, I got in the car and drove out into the soccer field
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I remember having 11 children on the car, hanging on the outside, on the front
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and maybe that's what happened to the rearview mirror. The teachers got wind of what was going on
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I finally did get slowed down, and then I got a couple of days off school for free
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And I think Dad had to come and get me. It looks better than it ever has in its life, I'm sure
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Ah, it's wonderful. Gives you such a good feeling. You know when you look back as a child, things always have a rosy look
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I'm looking at this thing and, damn, that was a pretty good childhood
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Every time anyone sees this car, they have a huge smile on their face
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And that's really fun to be around