The Peel Trident was the second three-wheeled
microcar made by the Peel Engineering Company on the Isle of Man. The Trident
was launched at the 1964 British Motorcycle Show held at Earls Court. The seat,
stated as being 79 cm wide, was intended to provide for use as an
occasional two-seater.
A completely new design from the earlier
side-engined Peel P50 microcar, the Trident was manufactured in 1965 and 1966.
In 2011, Peel Engineering Ltd started re-manufacturing the Peel Trident once
again in Sutton-in-Ashfield, near Nottingham, England. All vehicles are
hand-built to order in petrol and electric form.
The glass-fibre shell was a monocoque with
coil-sprung, undamped wheels. It featured a clear bubble top and either two
seats or one seat with a detachable shopping basket. The Lakeland Motor Museum
observes that the Trident's bubble top constituted grounds for its sobriquet
"The Terrestrial Flying Saucer." Like its predecessor, it was
marketed as a "shopping car" or a "Saloon
Scooter".
The car is 185 cm long and 99 cm wide, with a weight of 150 kg. Like the P50, it uses a 49 cc DKW engine which generates 4.2 hp, and a top speed of 45 km/h. It was advertised that the Trident got 100 miles per imperial gallon
(2.8 L/100 km; 83 mpg‑US), "almost cheaper than
walking". The original retail price was £ 190.
The Trident made a late transatlantic media
appearance in the American television series Monster Garage, when a team of
engineers and fabricators attempted to fit a high-performance Suzuki Hayabusa
superbike engine into the bodywork of a Trident, mounted onto a conventional
go-kart frame. The project was a failure, and the unfinished car was destroyed
by the show's host Jesse James with a single shot from a .50 caliber sniper
rifle.
It also made a brief appearance in the BBC motoring
programme Top Gear on BBC Two, when the P50 was featured more extensively and
the Trident was introduced as a "sports version". Co-presenter James
May described the Peel Trident as "something out of The Jetsons", and
co-presenter Jeremy Clarkson described the Trident and the P50 as his perfect
two-car garage.