How do you celebrate 75 years of motorsport without building another racing car? For Porsche, the answer is a smaller one! The Porsche 550 J is an officially licensed, electric version of the 550 Spyder at roughly four fifths scale, with British firm Hedley Studios building each one by hand.
The J stands for Junior. However, this is no toy for the playroom: it seats two adults and can reach about 80km/h.
The Car Behind the Tribute
The original 550 Spyder was the first Porsche designed specifically for motorsport, and it earned its place in the company’s history at the 1954 Carrera Panamericana, one of the toughest road races of its era. Factory drivers Hans Herrmann and Jaroslav Juhan each drove a 550 over the race’s full 3,077 kms. After five days of racing, Herrmann finished just 36 seconds ahead of his teammate, with the two small mid-engined cars finishing third and fourth overall and winning their class, beating rivals with far bigger engines. That result mattered well beyond 1954: Porsche has used the “Carrera” name on many of its sportier models ever since.
Then comes the 550 J
The 550 J measures roughly 2.9 metres long and 1.2 metres wide. It runs a fully electric 48V drivetrain producing about 8kW as standard, with an optional RS Package doubling that to as much as 16kW. In practical terms those are modest figures, with the top speed of around 80km/h suiting private grounds and paddocks rather than a fast road, which is just as well, since the 550 J is not road legal.
Porsche says it opened its corporate archives to the Hedley team and provided guidance throughout development. The official licence sets the 550 J apart from the many unofficial replicas of classic sports cars on the market.
Colours, Customisation and Ordering
Buyers can choose from a range of paint finishes, starting with classic Porsche Silver and extending to heritage-inspired schemes in blue, white, yellow and red. A Bespoke programme goes further, offering historic and modern colours as well as motorsport-style liveries. Each car is built by hand at Hedley Studios in Bicester, UK. Orders are open now through Hedley Studios, at a price of £69,500 for each of the 250 units.
Heritage, Scaled Down
Hedley Studios founder Ben Hedley says the aim was to keep the original’s spirit while making it relevant to a new generation. Porsche frames the project in similarly lofty terms, but the target buyer is clear: collectors and design enthusiasts, not racers (necessarily). Instead of a new race car for its milestone year, Porsche has licensed a handmade, battery powered tribute to a car that beat bigger rivals in 1954, and one that slots between the 1:1 and the 1:18 should you have both.
