Ecosse

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The Ecosse Car Company Ltd. , Ecosse for short , was a small English car manufacturer that only existed for a short time . The company, which was founded at the beginning of 1988 and was dissolved around the turn of 1989/90, was based in Knebworth in the county of Hertfordshire north of London .

The Ecosse Car Company was an attempt to trace the history of the traditional manufacturer AC Cars Ltd. to continue from Thames Ditton , who had stopped own vehicle production in 1984 due to poor profitability, and the small series manufacturer AC (Scotland) plc , which became insolvent in 1985 . from Glasgow - albeit under a new name and in a different location - to be continued.

Relevant people

The leading figures behind the company were John Parsons and Aubrey Woods.

The former was a rally driver who participated in national and international rally events in the United Kingdom such as the RAC Rally in the 1970s and early 1980s on various makes, mostly in smaller, near-series classes . He started, for example, on Mini Cooper and Mini 1275 GT , Hillman Avenger (or Chrysler / Talbot Avenger ) and Ford Escort (Mk.I) Mexico and RS 2000 . He later worked for several years in technical sales and distribution for Ford . He is not to be confused with the older American US racer John Parsons, mostly Johnnie Parsons called, who began his racing career after the Second World War and, for example, in 1950 the then to the Formula 1 World Championship scoring 500. Indianapolis won (after premature discontinuation due Rain after 354 miles). There is also no connection to the Australian racing driver of the same name or to another namesake, the lead guitarist of the Cologne dialect music group Höhner .

Aubrey Woods was an engine designer and team manager who previously worked primarily in motorsport. He entered the service of the race car and engine manufacturer in 1946 BRM , where he, together with the co-founder Peter Berthon and the technician Tony Rudd the V 16-cylinder Grand Prix -Motor Type 15 with 1.5-liter displacement and supercharging by means Rolls -Royce - Compressor that was used in racing until the mid-1950s. In 1961, together with Berthon, he designed the V8 Grand Prix engine type P56 V8 with 1.5-liter displacement, with which BRM won the Formula 1 constructors 'championship in 1962 and the title of drivers' world champion with its driver Graham Hill . Woods' other stations were Weslake Research in Rye , England , the Rover BRM program and work on the V12 cylinder racing engine from Gurney-Weslake and Ford . In 1972, together with the former Formula 1 driver Chris Amon , he developed Formula 2 engines for his company Amon Racing Engines , before returning to BRM as a technician and team manager in the mid-1970s . Further positions took him to Volkswagen in Wolfsburg before he went back to Scotland to work as technical director for the small series manufacturer AC (Scotland) plc. to work on the AC 3000ME model manufactured under license and its planned successor AC Ecosse . Woods died in late 2004. He should not be confused with the English actor of the same name, born in 1928.

History of the company

Forerunner of Ecosse Car Company Ltd. was the company AC Ecosse Ltd. which in turn relate to AC (Scotland) plc. in Glasgow and the traditional manufacturer AC Cars Ltd. declined in Thames Ditton in England.

In 1984 AC Cars Ltd. own vehicle production at its headquarters in Thames Ditton in the county of Surrey, west of London, where the company had been based since 1911, due to the poor earnings situation. Most recently, she was there, the mid-engine - sports car AC 3000ME produced from 1979 to 1984 in small series. In 1984/85 the newly founded company AC (Scotland) plc took over. in Glasgow, Scotland, its production under license . In 1985, under the technical direction of Aubrey Woods, she developed the technically and externally fundamentally revised prototype AC Ecosse on this basis , but could not officially present it and make it ready for series production due to the company's insolvency in the same year.

Aubrey Woods had set itself the goal of further developing the AC Ecosse prototype with the help of supporters and of producing an exclusive sports car with British flair for customers with high technical demands in small series. With the Ecosse , he wanted to compete against established small series manufacturers such as Ginetta , Lotus , Marcos , Panther , Reliant and TVR .

Woods therefore teamed up with John Parsons. The latter founded the company AC Ecosse Ltd. and in March 1986 acquired the rights to the AC 3000ME and its planned successor AC Ecosse from the insolvency administrator . Over the next two years, Parsons and Woods put together a small team of experienced technicians (mostly from the racing scene) to further develop the prototype. The focus was on changing from a 2.5-liter Alfa Romeo engine to a 2.0-liter inline four-cylinder from Fiat with two overhead camshafts (Twin Cam; dohc) and a turbocharger . There were also minor retouches on the body shape.

For legal reasons, the name "AC" could not be retained after the Ecosse had moved far away from the original AC 3000ME model and Brian Angliss with his company Autokraft Ltd. had acquired the AC naming rights in order to use them for the Cobra Mk.IV sports cars produced by him (further developed variant of the AC Cobra 427 ).

Parsons' company AC Ecosse Ltd. therefore changed its name to Ecosse Car Company Ltd. at the beginning of 1988 . around; at the same time she moved into a simple, small workshop in Knebworth in Hertfordshire.

The company name Ecosse is derived from the model name of the original AC Ecosse prototype ; this name is based on the fact that it was the first independent, from AC (Scotland) plc. after the founding in Glasgow, Scotland was self-developed model ('Ecosse' = French for 'Scotland'). On the other hand, there is no direct connection to the Ecurie Ecosse racing team , which was active from 1952 to 1971 (including participation in four Formula 1 races, the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 1956 to 1962 and numerous sports car races). There is also no direct connection to the Ecurie Ecosse team , which was active in racing in the 1980s, for example in the sports car world championship (category C2 with the self-designed models C284 , C285 and C286 in the years 1984 to 1986; design engineer title 1986, 2nd place the year before) or in the British Touring Car Championship with the Vauxhall Cavalier . However, individual technicians from Ecosse Car Company Ltd. previously worked in racing, including with the Ecurie Ecosse team .

The mid-engine sports car "Ecosse Signature"

From October 22 to 30, 1988, Ecosse Car Company Ltd. their mid-engined sports car, now called Ecosse Signature , at the British International Motor Show in the National Exhibition Center (NEC) in Birmingham . The aim was to sound out the interest of the public and press and to obtain additional financial support for the planned small series production. This should start from spring 1989 with an annual production of 150 vehicles in Coventry .

The reactions were mixed: While some welcomed the appearance of a new British sports car brand and described the vehicle as exciting, others criticized the long development time since 1985, the lack of image and the announced high purchase price; the idiosyncratic design also met with some harsh criticism.

Regardless of these mixed reactions, Ecosse Car Company Ltd. Using individual parts of the dismantled exhibition vehicle, a single street-legal (pre-) series vehicle as a demonstration vehicle for customers and a test vehicle for the press. September 1989 was named as the new beginning of small series production. At the same time, the issue of official sales brochures began in 1989. Ecosse hoped for a boost for the project from a detailed test report in the specialist magazine Performance Car ; this appeared in June 1989, but came to the sobering result that the vehicle in the tested form was immature.

The announced production date passed without series production ever starting; evidently the Ecosse Car Company had too few orders to secure further funding for the project. The greatest difficulty had proven that potential customers' interest in buying - as with the AC 3000ME from Thames Ditton and Scotland - had been lost in the course of the long development period.

The street-legal one-off still exists today and is owned by an English AC enthusiast and collector.

literature

  • Mike Lawrence: A to Z of Sports Cars, 1945-1990 . Bay View Books Ltd., Bideford, Devon 1996, ISBN 978-1-870979-81-8 (English, keyword: Ecosse (GB)).

Web links

  • Website on the Ecosse Signature ( Memento of June 21, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) on the non-commercial website of the AC 3000ME -owners (English) - The names of the two main participants are mistakenly misspelled on this website; correctly it must read: John Parson " s " (instead of Parson) and Aubrey Wood " s " (instead of Wood), s. Literature sources

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b car catalog, 33rd edition, year 1989/90, Vereinigte Motor-Verlage GmbH & Co. KG, Stuttgart, p. 104, 248/249.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Ecosse Signature ( Memento from June 21, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (English) Retrieved on May 10, 2015.
  3. ↑ NN in: “The Autocar” (magazine), Ecosse close to completion , edition 171, no. 4696, 1987, p. 9 (English).
  4. ↑ NN in: "Autocar & Motor" (magazine), Ed. 178, 1988, p. 70 (English).
  5. ↑ a b Information on modified AC 3000ME's ( Memento from June 22, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (to the "AC 3000ME" with the chassis no. 129, center, there - in contrast to the website under "Weblinks" - also correct spelling the name Aubrey Wood " s " - English) Retrieved on May 10, 2015.
  6. ↑ a b Basic Car History ( Memento from June 20, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (English) Retrieved on May 10, 2015.
  7. ^ AC Cars. Its history. Part 1 1901-1958. ( Memento of the original from August 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.acheritage.co.uk
  8. ↑ a b Giles Chapman in: “Autocar & Motor” (magazine), Sideways Glance , Ed. 178, 1988, p. 81 (English).
  9. ↑ Quote: “... look truly dire. ... ", translated:" ... look really terrible. ... ', Giles Chapman in: "Autocar & Motor", Ed. 178, 1988, p. 81 (joint review of the Ecosse Signature and Lea Francis Ace of Spades - English)
  10. ^ NN in: “Performance Car” (magazine), Signing Up and Almost There - Full details on the Ecosse Signature and the people who are making it , June 1989 (comprehensive report - English).