“Imagine you’re sitting on the floor with your knees up in the air, that’s pretty much the driving position. So it’ll be quite cramped. Which is why it’s a challenge.”
Alex Orchin is explaining the most difficult part of driving the smallest car ever manufactured the full length of Great Britain, starting from John o’ Groats this Saturday.
You might think the car itself would be the problem – the Peel P50’s three wheels are each about the size of the ones you might find on a mobility scooter, and Alex admits “the handling’s all over the place” if you do manage, by some divine accident, to get it going faster than 35mph.
But no. The real test will be his own endurance: “I don’t doubt the capabilities of the car,” he said. “What might slow me down is my physical capability of how long I can subject myself to driving in it per day.”
By his own estimation, Alex thinks the journey should take between two and three weeks, and if all goes to plan he will be finished by early December.
Journey into the unknown
However, there’s no way for him to know whether that target is realistic. If he makes it to Land’s End, he will become the first person to ever make that famous trip in the world’s smallest production car.
He said: “I don’t know what the journey’s going to be like, because I’ve never done anything like this and no one has ever driven a Peel P50 from John o’ Groats to Land’s End – it’s never been done.
“So there’s a very strong element of not knowing.”
An additional challenge comes from the fact he is not legally allowed to drive the P50 on a motorway, and even if he could “it would be far too dangerous”.
In fact, he is planning to avoid dual carriageways altogether, which will allow him to explore more interesting parts of the country but will also seriously extend the trip.
The car is also too basic for a radio, not that Alex would be able to hear it over the noise of the engine under his legs – instead, he wears ear defenders to block out the din and listen to his own music.
Because of a serious lack of storage space, his friend Joley will accompany him the full length with a campervan, which will carry clothes and essential supplies as well as a toilet and shower.
Historic car fanatic
Alex, who lives in the village of Wivelsfield in Sussex, describes himself as someone who does “anything and everything”: he is an actor, a musician, a gardener and a handyman, and he also helps out with the company that builds ‘microcars’ such as the one he will be climbing inside on Saturday.
His Peel is not an original (which would make it almost 60-years-old) but a replica, made by the London-based company P50 Cars.
The car may be best known for a particularly memorable segment on Top Gear back in 2007, when Jeremy Clarkson drove an original model through the offices at BBC Television Centre.
Alex, 31, has been driving his P50 for around four years, and said he had been looking for a project for a while before settling on the John o’ Groats to Land’s End challenge.
His friend Liz suggested Children in Need for a charity to support, and the groundwork was laid.
Piping for pounds
Money is not only being raised through his GoFundMe page, but also through another long-held passion quite different from historic cars: the Highland bagpipes.
Alex said: “I’ve been playing the pipes since I was 11, and I’m 31 now.
“Basically, as I travel through various towns and villages and cities, I will park the car, stand next to it with the Highland pipes, and I’ve got a large poster explaining who I am and what I’m doing for Children in Need so I can raise money on the road as I go.
“The bagpipes always attract a crowd, the Peel P50 always attracts a crowd, so combining the two should raise awareness of what I’m doing.”
Children in Need takes place this year on November 19, by which time he will likely not even be halfway finished.
But that sort of thing does not concern Alex, whose commitment to embracing uncertainty is such that he has not planned a route beyond first travelling to Tongue – around 60 miles west of John o’ Groats.
Those wishing to follow his odyssey, and find out where he’s heading almost at the same time he does himself, can check out his Youtube page: appropriately titled ‘Forward to the Past’.