YOUNG DRIVER MOTOR CARS
About Us
What we do
Young Driver Motor Cars design and build distinctive and exemplary cars in the UK for 4 – 10 year olds worldwide.
Established in 2015 we are based in the West Midlands, the heart of the UK motor industry.
Our highly experienced automotive designers, engineers and manufacturing experts all have extensive experience of creating real cars for automotive brands from Aston Martin and Bentley to Land Rover and MG. Our team is dedicated to creating real cars for 4 – 10 year olds, not toys. As with our previous models production series cars are manufactured In Britain. Our latest car, Firefly Sport, is unique in using entirely British made components, making it Britain’s first EV!
Firefly Sport launched in August 2022.
Firefly Sport features supercar design cues, a state of the art aluminium chassis with fully independent suspension and twin electric motors, delivering car-like handling and stunning looks. The tablet dashboard, reversing camera, tracking indicators with side repeaters, LED pencil headlights and mains or fully solar charging options are sure to enthuse a new generation of drivers about road safety, sustainability and the growing importance of EVs.
For more details of the all-new Firefly Sport, click here:
Our people
The people behind Young Driver Motor Cars are each incredibly experienced in their particular fields of expertise in the mainstream motor industry, having held senior positions in manufacturers and tier one automotive suppliers.
Being a small, experienced and motivated team, we are able to work at speed to bring innovative and technically sophisticated solutions to market that have integrity, reliability and great design.
We are each passionate about cars and believe that enabling the next generation of motorists to learn to drive and enjoy driving safely in a product as close as possible to the real thing represents a real contribution to road safety.
We love the opportunities that electric power brings in terms of vehicle design, packaging, style and performance and, most importantly, the ability to create recyclable vehicles that have minimum impact on the environment during build and in operation.
Chief engineer, Steve Rawson
Powertrain engineer, Dr Ian Pogson
Electrical engineer, Paul Adams
Sales and Marketing, Ian Mulingani
Finance and business planning, Leigh Williams-Young
And thanks to our 4-10 year old test drivers.
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We all believe in British innovation, engineering skill and creativity.
As we developed Firefly Sport, the Covid pandemic struck and it became clear that stretched global supply lines and the pursuit of cheap components from far flung countries was a popular but deeply flawed strategy.
From really early on in the planning stage, therefore, we decided to revert to very short supply lines through using only responsive local suppliers with huge automotive experience, giving us the ability to collaborate quickly and easily throughout the design and prototyping phases, with the ability to visit “in person” enabling rapid progress, a shared vision and our ability to access cutting edge techniques and products in an agile and cost effective way.
British Suppliers
Our UK supplier team provides 98% UK made components on our prototype and pre- production vehicles which we are working to increase to 100% UK components on production series cars. We are indebted to our suppliers for bringing their world-leading expertise and technologies to the project, from motors and batteries to body production
and suspension components. In many cases, we have asked suppliers to create new, miniaturised components that replicate what they manufacture for OEMs building full scale cars and they have risen to the challenge.