Trojan was founded by Leslie Hayward Hounsfield who in 1913 built a prototype vehicle with a 2 stroke 4 cylinder motor. Production never got under way due to the commencement of hostilities in the 1914 – 1918 war.

After World War 1 Trojan reached an agreement with Leyland Motors to produce cars and vans at a surplus facility where Leyland had been contracted to maintain military vehicles. With over 17,OOO private and commercial vehicles built this agreement came to and end in 1928.

Car production declined at Trojans own factory despite the introduction of new models but sales of vans continued until the 1950’s. Peter Agg acquired Trojan in 1959 and amongst the changes he initiated was the production of the Heinkel Kabine under license which commenced in 1960.

The Heinkel Kabine was designed by Heinkel Flugzeugwerke and built by them from 1956 to 1958 when they licensed Dundalk Engineering Company in Ireland to manufacture the car. Quality issues saw the license quickly withdrawn and transferred to Trojan who sold the vehicles with the strap line “Put The Family On The Road”.

Today’s featured car was built in 1963 entry is effected through a front hinged door, similar to the Italian designed Isetta, but with out the benefit of the steering being attached to the door.

The car is powered by an air cooled single cylinder 4 stroke motor attached to a four speed gearbox which, unusually for a bubble car, included a reverse gear.

Around 6000 Trojan 200’s were built by Trojan up until 1965. Trojan diversified into building Elva sports cars from 1962 until 1965 before building 200 McLaren racing cars until the early 1970’s. The company went on to build it’s own Formula 5000 cars and a one off Grand Prix car, the Trojan 103 in 1974.

Thanks for joining me on this “Put the family on the road” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !