Almost 70 years after Ecurie Ecosse driver Ian Stewart collected his C-Type Jaguar from the factory the famous Scottish race team is to build its own series of tribute cars.
In 1952 Stewart took his Jaguar to the little island of Jersey and trounced rivals from Aston Martin and Frazer Nash, beginning a storied career for Ecurie Ecosse which would include winning Le Mans in 1956 and 1957 in D-Types driven by Ron Flockhart, Ninian Sanderson and Ivor Bueb.
The C-Type was where it all began and Ecurie Ecosse is celebrating by building seven ‘new’ C-Types to mirror the team’s original seven cars – all of which still exist.
Ecurie Ecosse patron Alasdair McCaig says, “We are paying homage to these cars by creating a numbered sister car to each one. Meticulous in their detail, like their forebears, hand-built in Coventry and tuned by Ecurie Ecosse technicians.”
True to its form Ecurie Ecosse is retaining as much originality in the new cars as possible while also adding a few “considered” improvements. The body is still hand fabricated from thin gauge aluminium alloy and fitted to a steel spaceframe chassis, although it is slightly wider, and said to be significantly stiffer than the original. A straight-six Jaguar engine remains at the heart of the C-type, but is of 4.2-litre rather than three-litre capacity, and has fuel injection to deliver over 300 horsepower. Suspension and braking are uprated, and a five-speed manual transmission is fitted.
The meticulously applied blue paintwork is set off by airbrushed Ecurie Ecosse shields, while the interior is trimmed in blue leather by Crest and features a pair of Tag Heuer Master Time stopwatches on the dashboard.
Now you have a rough picture of the tribute cars, who’d like to play a guessing game? Each of the seven cars will cost £516,000, and buyers will doubtless be attracted by the fact that they will be road legal. How much do you think an original C-Type campaigned by Ecurie Ecosse might be worth?
In 2016, an ex-Ecurie Ecosse C-Type came to market and fetched a cool £5.7 million.
Ecurie Ecosse is not alone in mining its past. Historic names including Allard, BRM and Vanwall have recently announced continuation-type cars. Before that, in 2019, Ecurie announced that it would build 25 examples of the LM69 – a road-legal track car inspired by the never-raced Jaguar XJ13.
