Memories

Graham Gauld recalls some of the unpublished stories about Ecurie Ecosse.

Two Ecosse-Climaxes?

Racing enthusiasts who attended the early race meetings at the Ingliston circuit will remember the Ecosse-Climax when Stan Sproat took the battered remains of the Cooper-Monaco that Jackie Stewart put up a tree at Oulton Park and rebuilt it into a single-seater so that Ecurie Ecosse could support the then-new Scottish Circuit. The year was 1965 and Bill Stein ran it for the first time on a practice day before the track officially opened and so that it could receive its track licence. That day the car was finished in burnished aluminium. He then won the first Formula Libre race held at the circuit and created the first lap record. The story of what happened to the car will be told later on the web site but it is sufficient to say that it was a very successful Libre car.

A few weeks ago my South African friend Rob Young sent me a copy of a superb soft-cover booklet written by him along with Greg Mills and Andrew Reed called ï¿½Pipesï¿½ and covers David Piperï¿½s races in the Springbok series and later his own historic racing series in South Africa. (Further book information from Ecurie Zoo Publications, voszoo@global.co.za)ï¿½ Imagine my surprise when I read about a South African driver called Jack Holme who built a sports car special called the Ecosse-Climax around the same time as David Murray launched Ecurie Ecosseï¿½s Ecosse-Climax.

Jack Holme, according to Rob Young who knew him well, ï¿½ï¿½was a crusty old codger with a heart of gold. His wife was Scottish and they proudly had the St Andrews cross on the back of their tow cars. He was a successfulï¿½ builder in Johnannesburg and later moved to Natal. He built the first of four Ecosses in 1961 based on a Lotus 18 Formula Junior car. He then took this car, split it down the middle and widened it to convert it into a sports car but it was destroyed in Mozambique. However, Jack took the remnants back home and rebuilt it this time with a sleeved down Coventry-Climax engine which he then called the Ecosse-Climax. The following year 1965, he used an 1100 Formula 3 Climax engine. His third Ecosse sports car was fitted with an FVA Cosworth F2ï¿½ engine and the final one used a Lola T210 body.Jack Holme built all of these cars in the garage below his house and when he was not working on them parked them outside in the garden with tarpaulins over them. However, as can be seen from the photo of the second Ecosse , published here, it was a very professional looking car. So, it appears that Jack Holme actually produced the first Ecosse-Climax as his car ran in the 1964 season a year before the Edinburgh-built Ecurie Ecosse car.

It has often been asked why Ecurie Ecosse from time to time chose drivers to race for the team who were not Scottish.

In the early days the plain fact of the matter was that there were few Scottish drivers who were up to racing in International events. There were too few race meetings in Scotland and even fewer modern competitive racing cars being raced and so David Murray was forced to look around for drivers who could bring in some personal financial backing or else foreign drivers recommended by organising clubs.

A good example came in 1954 when Ecurie Ecosse visited Argentina for the 1000kms race. The organisers offered expenses for Ecurie Ecosse to take three of their C-type Jaguars to race but the catch was the third car had to be driven by Argentinean drivers selected by the organising club. David Murray, who had just taken delivery of two of the ex-factory C-type Jaguars with disc brakes, obviously did not want to give these to anyone to drive and so he put the Scots pairings of Jamie Scott Douglas and Ninian Sanderson in one and Ian Stewart and Jimmy Stewart in the other. The third car he took was one of the old drum-braked 1953 cars which was duly given to local drivers Adolfo Schwelm Cruz and Juan Schroeder but they retired.

The first non-Scottish driver to race for Ecurie Ecosse was Guy Gale who shared Jamie Scott Douglasï¿½ Jaguar XK120 at Spa in 1953. Prince Bira was reserve driver for the entry but never actually drove so he became the first non-British driver to be entered by Ecurie Ecosse.