Product Update

Is Peel Engineering Still in Business? (2026 Update)

Is Peel Engineering from Dragons’ Den still around in 2026? The deal it made, the dragons who invested, and where to buy Peel Engineering today.

Dragons' Den IndexUpdated 23 January 20266 min read

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Peel Engineering makes the world's smallest production car, and its Dragons' Den pitch is one of the more unlikely rescue stories in the show's history: a nearly forgotten Isle of Man manufacturer brought back from the brink and, years later, still building cars today.

The Short Answer

Peel Engineering is still in business. The company continues to build and sell replica versions of the Peel P50 and Peel Trident, the tiny three-wheeled microcars originally produced on the Isle of Man in the 1960s, through its own website, with current pricing for factory-built cars starting well into five figures.

There is no Amazon listing, unsurprisingly for a vehicle manufacturer, but the direct sales channel through the company's own site is active and clearly still trading as of 2026.

The Dragons' Den Pitch

Entrepreneurs Faizal Khan and Gary Hillman pitched in series 8, episode 6, having taken on the rights to the Peel name and the original P50 design, the car listed in Guinness World Records as the smallest production car ever made, and set about rebuilding it as a modern, electric-powered vehicle. They asked for £80,000 in exchange for 30 percent of the business, plus two Peel cars, one of each model, thrown in as part of the deal.

Reviving a genuinely famous but long-dormant vehicle brand, and doing it with an electric powertrain rather than the original petrol engine, gave the pitch a nostalgia hook and a forward-looking angle at the same time, a combination that tends to play well in the Den.

The Deal That Got Done

James Caan backed the business, investing the full £80,000 asked for in exchange for the 30 percent stake on the table, plus the two cars included as part of the arrangement. James's background across a range of consumer and manufacturing ventures made him a fitting partner for a founder team trying to bring a heritage vehicle brand back into small-scale production.

The deal gave Peel Engineering the capital to move from prototype revival to genuine, if low-volume, manufacturing, building roughly 50 electric-powered cars a year in the period immediately following the investment.

What Happened After the Cameras Stopped

Reviving a heritage vehicle brand is a genuinely difficult manufacturing challenge, since every car has to be hand-built in small numbers, and the ownership of the Peel name and rights has shifted over the years since the original Dragons' Den deal. What has stayed constant is that someone has kept building the cars.

The Peel P50 and Trident continue to be manufactured as continuation cars today, built to the original proportions and details but updated for modern roads, and offered in both petrol and electric versions. That kind of continuity, through changes in ownership and more than a decade of small-scale production, is a genuine survival story for a niche manufacturing business.

A Heritage Brand That Outlasted Its Original Backers

Peel Engineering's continued survival is a slightly different kind of success story from most on this site, because it is not really about the original founders still running the exact business James Caan invested in. Ownership of the Peel name and manufacturing rights has moved on since the Dragons' Den deal, which is common for niche heritage vehicle brands as they change hands between enthusiasts and small manufacturers over the years.

What has genuinely persisted is the underlying demand: there is a durable, if small, market of collectors and enthusiasts who want to own the world's smallest production car, and that demand has been enough to keep someone building and selling P50s and Tridents continuously since the original 2010s revival that James Caan backed. The brand outliving any single owner is arguably the strongest possible evidence that the original investment thesis was sound.

Where Things Stand Now

Recap: Faizal Khan and Gary Hillman pitched Peel Engineering in series 8 asking for £80,000 for 30 percent plus two cars, and James Caan closed that exact deal.

Today the Peel P50 and Trident are still in production, sold as factory-built or kit cars through the company's own website, with 2026 pricing starting at £12,495 for a factory build.

If you were wondering whether the world's smallest production car survived its Dragons' Den moment, it did, and you can still order one today.

Where to buy Peel Engineering

Still selling as of 23 January 2026. Check today's price and availability.

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See the full Peel Engineering deal breakdown and term sheet →