Win the chance to race in the Settrington Cup

Austin J40s were a popular children’s toy in the late 1940s and ‘50s, manufactured by the Austin Motor Company and designed loosely around the A40 road car. It featured an imitation engine with real spark plugs, battery powered headlights and faux leather upholstery. Production continued up until 1971, at which point more than 32,000 of them had been built. Just a small selection of the surviving J40s congregate at Goodwood each year for the Settrington Cup, but we haven’t seen this particular car in action for many years.

This is perhaps the most illustrious Austin J40 of them all, the winner of the original pedal car race that took place at Silverstone in 1955. The driver at the wheel on that day was Ted French, who at the age of eight overcame the opposition to become the first ever winner of an Austin J40 race. He, on the 70^th anniversary of that day, will making his beloved pedal car available for the winner of this competition to climb into the cockpit and drive it in anger once again.

We spoke to Ted to find out more about that day in 1955, when he beat 19 other drivers at Silverstone, and the story of his special little J40.

“There was an event called the Austin Jubilee, which was the 50^th anniversary of the Austin Motor Company,” he said. “It was a race day at Silverstone and part of the event, round about two o'clock in the afternoon, they had the pedal car race of the J40s.

“John Cooper of Austin Cooper cars, his daughter was in the race, so I was kind of racing amongst daughters of racing drivers and sons of racing drivers of the day.”

He and his esteemed peers lined up to start the race on the old pit straight, in front of a packed main grandstand. Ted was driving car number 19.

“I was in the second row, and as the flag was let down for us to start, the young guy in front of me hesitated. So I had to pedal backwards a little bit and then forwards to overtake him. And then you know, I just pedalled like mad.

“I think we probably pedalled something like half a mile, it was a fair bit because I kept peddling and probably must have been about 3/4 of the way through the length. I managed to work my way up into the lead and then the chequered flag went down.”

It may have felt like half a mile to his little legs, but the official race distance was 500 yards, still no short distance behind the wheel of a J40. It was Tony Rolt, the winner of the 1953 Le Mans 24 Hours, who waved the chequered flag, and presented Ted with his winner’s laurel.

“What I was told at the time was that I had a three-second lead and I tipped a speed of 16.61 miles an hour. Which was quite a feat, I suppose, really when you think about it, but when you're in the circumstance, even as a young kid, you do your very, very best.”

Ted was very much in his element at a race track. His father was a friend of Reg Bicknell, who raced Lotus 11s and won several races at Brands Hatch in 1956, and he spent much of his childhood attending race meetings all over Britain. He attended his first event here at Goodwood when he was just 18 months old, so motorsport was very much in his blood, and driving around in his little Austin J40 was something he became rather good at.

“I used to peddle it around a lot, my dad even fitted a little tow bar on it so I could tow a trailer. I used to do a lot of miles in it, you only had a lifetime of probably about three years that you could pedal it, because obviously you're growing all the time, and after about three years I'd grown too big."

“I used to have a cousin that lived about three miles away and quite often of a Saturday morning I used to pedal the little J40 to see him. And being a two-seater, he was younger than me and he could be passenger and we would pedal around together.”

But Ted had just one opportunity to race it, because that event at Silverstone in 1955 was the only ever organised J40 competition. It’s only since the Settrington Cup was formed at the Goodwood Revival that these little Austin pedal cars have regularly experienced the vigour of racing again.

“When Goodwood decided to take it up and start racing them at the Revival, it was something quite incredible. Suddenly a load of these J40s which were lying around part built got a new lease of life again.

“When the Revival first started there was probably only a handful of cars, probably only about 20 of them, but now I understand there could be over 100 of them.”

But none will have quite such a story to tell as this one, the original race winner, car number 19. One lucky winner is going to get the chance to drive this car at Goodwood in this year’s Settrington Cup, and soak in all of its 70 years of history and the many stories it has to tell.

“I’ve built up quite a connection with Jamie Burnett at the J40 factory where they are restoring my car. It had been stored in the dry for 70-odd years, but there are few bits and pieces missing on it.

“I think my dad took it apart once. He was trying to stretch a few things on it so that perhaps so I could get another year's pedalling out of it. There’s no rust in it, the original paintwork’s on it, but I was quite pleased to hear that they were going to run this competition and, whoever wins it, will have the privilege of pedalling my car on the day at the Revival.

“I think that's wonderful and I've really let the J40 people have my car because unfortunately I've got no children or grandchildren that would be at the right age to be able to use it and for me, it will be wonderful if it is used in anger again.”

It’ll be quite the moment to see the original race winning Austin J40 in action at the Revival this year, and we can’t wait to find out who will be climbing into the drivers’ seat.

Tickets for the Goodwood Revival are now limited! Saturday tickets are selling fast, so secure yours now to avoid missing out on the world's best historic motorsport event.