Lego Technic MOC - Peel P50

Having several larger builds stuck in various stages of building kind of pushed me towards smaller projects. This is one of those, the Peel P50. It is the smallest production car ever made.

Starting off, it was obvious that some of the curves would not be easy to replicate. I started off trying to get the side profile right, which is a bit tricky because the bodywork gets narrower towards the rear. The curved 11x3 panel seemed to be a good fit for the top of the door as well as the bottom of the sides. I scaled the whole build based on that panel. The front and rear parts were started with system pieces.

Next, I continued with the front, trying to replicate the rounded shapes.

I noticed at this point that the front, as well as the doors were too high. The top of the "hood" also felt a bit flat. The next iteration improved the front and added the white "bumpers".

The white parts looked far too boxy so I tried out the flex axles for the bumpers. Even though they were too long, they looked much better and gave the front a more rounded look. I also revised the curved slopes to make the front one plate narrower than the other two, which also helped to simulate the roundness.

In parallel, I was also thinking about how I could integrate a single cylinder engine on the right hand side, like in the real thing. I tried out the engine block and cylinder, but it was obviously far too big to integrate successfully. I would need to find a smaller solution for the engine.

At this point, the front wheels were still just hacked into place, just to have an idea of where they will be. However, I needed to have the wheel mounting and steering done before I finalized the front section. Originally, I was not planning on having any suspension, just to keep it simple. However, as the wheels are so small, I needed a way to have some ground clearance, so I wanted to have some structure that sloped down to the wheels to hold them. I tried out several different solutions, but they were all quite fragile and messy. Then I tried out these small suspension arms and that seemed to work quite well:

As an added benefit, these look like the suspension arms on the real thing. I was even able to put in the rubber connectors as springs and have a little bit of suspension travel. The only downside is that the steering is not terribly precise, and there is quite a lot of bump steer with the wheel travel.

Having the front set up, now, it was time to look at the back. I hacked a rear wheel in place, to get an idea of the position and available space.

What I needed to do here was to figure out some suspension and drive from the engine to the rear wheel. It seemed that the available width at the rear was already going to be challenging. There was about 5 studs or width between the bottom side panels at the rear. However, I was using connectors on the inside of those to fix them, so there was only 3 studs, really.

As the rear wheel itself already needed two studs of width, doing everything in 3 studs of width was not going to be possible. 5 studs was probably my best bet, and the panel connections would be revised to not reduce the width there.

For the suspension, I was thinking that a simple trailing arm would be fine, again with a rubber connector to act as a spring. For the drive train, there were basically two options: Either a chain or drive via bevel gears. The chain drive seemed easier to minimize the width, but it would depend on the whole connection to the engine. Therefore, I started to look at how to do the engine. After a few iterations, I came up with this.

This looked halfway decent, but I realized that it would interfere with the lower side panels. So, I went back to trying to make both the rear suspension, drivetrain and engine together. After several iterations, I came up with this:

I was able to push the black 16 tooth gear almost completely into the wheel which saved a lot of space. It was a bit wobbly as the wheel was only supported from one side, but it looked good enough to use. Now, this was going to replace the existing chassis completely, so I married it up to the front part.

That looked alright, so I tried the right hand side panels on. It fit barely, without interfering with the engine.

Next, I tried to put the other side with the door on, to see how the whole thing was coming together. I also added the seat that I had built separately.

Next up, I started to work on the back corner and the B pillar up to the roof.

I also added some rubber connectors to the rear suspension, to have a small amount of springing. At the moment, they just kind of push toward the back of the seat, so the solution is not great, but it works. I will need to see later on in the build, if there is a better solution for that. I also added a thin liftarm to the left side of the rear wheel to better support it.

This was a part of the build where I just had to build the bodywork at the back end, so it was going quite fast. I was pushing forward and trying to finish it, until I realized that I had forgotten the white "bumper" pieces at the back corner. I realized that I had put a 3x5 liftarm where they were supposed to go. I had to redesign the whole corner, to accommodate the bumper.

This looked fine, and the end of the build looked was in sight at this point. However, as I was building the rear end, I realized that the rear end felt too narrow and curvy, compared to the real thing.

I had not had an easy reference to figure out how much wider the front of the real car is, compared to the rear. I had kind of guessed at it. Now, upon closer inspection, it seemed that I needed to do two things: widen the rear end overall, and also reduce the slope that follows the doors, as the rear end is much more square. I would have to rebuild the sides and back. This was not so bad as the structure was still very flimsy and needed to be rebuilt for stiffness anyway.

Starting with this, I did some major revision on the back, and reduced the taper from the front to back. As the back was looking ok, I continued on the top and finished that.

Now, at this point, I should have been close to the end. In terms of looks, I was very close to the end. However, structurally, the back of the model was still very flimsy and the roof was not attached to the back at all. There were various other small things I wanted to improve, so I started to rebuild the sides and back, keeping the model built so far intact for reference. The goal was to rebuild while making sure that the structure was stiff. I started at the back axle. One of the things I wanted to improve was the position of the engine. I wanted to move it one stud forward to make it more visible through the side view.

After rebuilding the chassis, things were looking much better. The back end looked much more realistic now. I had strengthened the connection from the roof to the rear. It was now so strong that you could easily pick the car up with just the roof. Moving the engine forward by one stud was also a huge improvement, as it was now visible from the side, like in the real thing. It felt like everything was coming together nicely.

Next, I revised the front to make it a bit more robust. It had had problems coming apart when compressing the front suspension. After that, it was onto adding some details. I added a side mirror on the right side, and a door latch on the left side. For the latch, I was initially thinking about some solution with a rubber band to keep the latch in place. I just did not see a good place to attach the other end of the rubber band. I started to build it, and realized quickly that I could just use gravity instead of the rubber band. Sometimes, the best solutions just hit you in the face. The latch is a bit bulky on the inside, but it is simple, and works really well.

At this point, I was just waiting on some parts in the correct colors to call it done. However, one more thing kept nagging me in the back of my mind: a functional handbrake. Now, I was not sure if it would be possible as there was really not much space left. I just knew that, if I could make it work, it would be really really cool, in this scale, in this tiny car. I would at least have to try, to see if I could make it work.

This was the most painful part of this build. The only possible place for the handbrake mechanism was the space under the seat, with the handle sticking out the side. The problem was, I had to take pretty much the whole thing apart to try anything out, as the seat was part of the structure itself. With gritted teeth, I pulled the model apart, and started trying out different solutions.

I first tried to "brake" the u-joint by pushing a rubber axle onto it. This produced hardly any braking effect. The only other possible solution was to engage the 16 tooth gear that linked the engine to the wheels. I first wanted to engage another gear by sliding the (rotationally) fixed gear next to it. However, there was no space for a such a gear to slide and not hit anything else. Then I started to think about what else I could push against that gear to stop it rotating. I decided to try to push a rubber liftarm on top of the gear. When the handbrake lever is pulled the axle with the rubber liftarm moves toward the 16 tooth gear but is one stud above it. However, as the 16 tooth gear is slightly larger than 1 stud, the axle with the rubber liftarm is pushed slightly upward when it tries to go over the gear. This flexing pushes the rubber liftarm on to the gear with enough force to keep it from rotating. As an added bonus, it also keeps the handbrake firmly in the engaged position.

With the handbrake done, I added some more details: A side mirror on the right hand side, a fuel cap, the exhaust, a speedometer. With those done, I could call this project done.

Front suspension detail:

Rear suspension detail:

Even though there were a few challenges and setbacks, this was a really fun project. I'm really happy with the results, especially with all the functions that fit in this tiny car, in this tiny scale. I was also pleasantly surprised with how well the bodywork came out, especially the curved parts. This project was so much fun, that I'm now thinking about building some other microcars in a similar scale.

Here are some more pictures: