Around the world in a small vintage car
11/01/2016
You wouldn't exactly choose a car, and a 30-year-old one at that, with 98 cm3 and a top speed of 25 km/h (in ideal conditions) to travel around the world in. But the Brit Jim Parkinson did just that.
In the mid-sixties, at the age of 32, he set off to travel the world. When the photo was taken, he had already traveled through Belgium, Holland, West and East Germany, Poland and Russia; the picture itself was taken in the USA, which was the next nation he crossed.
The Rytecraft Scootacar was a British microcar built by the British Motorboat Manufacturing Company in London between 1934 and 1940. Initially there were electric versions, then the small single-seater cars without suspension were powered by a Villiers Midget 98 cm3 engine, whose power was transmitted via an automatic clutch to one rear wheel and thus to the road. From 1939, there was then more power with a 250 cm3 single-cylinder engine with a three-speed gearbox.
Around 1000 of these cars are said to have been built, and Parkinson covered around 24,000 km with his car on the world tour, which probably meant over 1000 hours of pure driving time.
