THERE WAS A BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY IN HALF SCALE CLASSIC CARS

DOES SIZE MATTER?

Children learn more quickly during their early years in part because they are more receptive to learning and in part because they have less caution. They use toys to learn skills that will become useful in later life and, it is logical to suggest that those who start driving youngest have a better chance of becoming successful racing drivers because they learn and refine techniques and tune highly-calibrated sensory integration skills at an early age.

Most kids learn these skills in karts.

Nathan Redfearn grew up in a racing family and at the age of 10 built his first kart, with the help of a local blacksmith in Wales. At 17 he set up a classic car repair business in Haverfordwest before moving on to dealing and restoring Porsche 911s and producing stainless steel bumpers for classic cars. This took him to California where he met Vietnamese violinist Ly Phan Dieu and the two married and settled in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), where they set up the Harrington Group in 2002.

Today they employ 128 staff, restoring classic cars and bikes and manufacturing half-scale cars. The idea came after he bought his nephew a half-scale Mercedes, at considerable cost, and was appalled by the quality of the product and decided to do a better job. The first generation of his "junior cars" were based on karts fitted with body shells, which were handcrafted. The early days saw Harrington concentrate on the Bugatti Type 35, but the rnage expanded to several different mdoels, all handmade.



The business was stopped in 2010 in order to concentrate on other businesses and because the cost of the manufacturing had climbed to unsustainable levels. A burst of publicity following a magazine article about them led to the company receiving 200 orders a day and they suddenly found that they had an order book that was filled for two years. They decided to invest and re-engineer the range to make them easier to mass produce, but also to make them much more sophisticated. All four of the models used the same basic chassis, suspension, differential and brakes with 120cc four-stroke engines supplied by the Chinese firms Loncin and Lifan. As the cars weigh only 200 kg they can get up to 44 mph, although the factory will create slower versions for younger children.



 They are not, however, simple toys any longer and feature semi-automatic gearboxes, with sophisticated fully-adjustable independent suspension at both ends, limited slip diffs, vented dual pot Brembo disc brakes front and rear and aluminum wheels. In effect they are real cars in miniature. The four models chosen were based on the AC Cobra, the Ferrari GT250 California Spyder, the Aston Martin DB5 and the Jaguar XK120. Harrington has made the cars fully adjustable because it understands that the cars will be used not just by kids, but also by their parents. The cars retail at $12,399 plus shipping, but you get a 20 percent discount if you buy two. The latest idea is a two-thirds scale racing car, based on the Lotus 25 F1 car.

Harrignton's goal is to create a new class of racing that is more relevant to the real world than are karts. The firm today employs 128 people. The first generation cars have become collectors' items and are changing hands at much more than