1957 Lister Jaguar

I took this photograph in the paddock at Oulton Park at the 1957 British Empire Trophy meeting.

It's Archie Scott Brown's 1957 Lister Jaguar, the first Jaguar engined Lister, which was built before the FIA's Appendix C regulations required it to have headlights. Unlike the previous years' meetings which were run in 3 heats according to engine size with a handicap final the 1957 event just had three races based on engine size with the winner of the Trophy being the car that won its race in the shortest time. The 'Up to 1,200cc' race was won by Graham Hill in a Lotus Eleven while the '1,200cc to 2,000cc' race was won by Ron Flockhart, also in a Lotus Eleven but with a larger engine. The 'Over 2,000cc' race was won by Archie Scott Brown in this car and (naturally) he did it in the quickest time to win the Trophy. I came across a quote saying that drivers who raced against him were unanimous in saying that “… Archie spends less time travelling with all wheels pointing straight ahead than any other driver”.

Archie Scott Brown

A couple of weeks ago I showed a photograph of Archie Scott Brown in a Lister Maserati that my brother had taken at the British Grand Prix meeting at Silverstone in 1956. Here's a photograph of Archie Scott Brown that I took in the Paddock at the British Empire Trophy meeting at Oulton Park in April 1956.

To me the British Empire Trophy and Archie Scott Brown are synonymous. The first race meeting I ever attended was the 1955 British Empire Trophy meeting at Oulton Park which was won by Archie Scott Brown in a Lister Bristol. At the following year's meeting, where the above photograph was taken, he drove the unsuccessful Lister Maserati and failed to finish the race. In 1957 Archie drove the first of the Lister Jaguars, winning the race again, and in 1958 he took his Lister Jaguar to third place behind the Aston Martin DBR2s of Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks. Sadly, this was to be the last time I saw him race at Oulton Park as he lost his life in a race at Spa-Francorchamps the following month.

Lister Maserati

This is another of those Kodak Brownie 127 photographs that my brother took of one of the cars that competed in the sports car race at the British Grand Prix meeting at Silverstone in July 1956.

It's the 1956 Lister Maserati being driven here in the paddock on practice day by Archie Scott Brown. Archie Scott Brown, although severely physically handicapped, had achieved much success in the 1954 season with a Lister MG which continued in the 1955 season when a Bristol engine was fitted in place of the MG unit. For the 1956 season a new car was designed using one of the 2 litre Maserati engines that had been designed for the A6GCS. This engine proved to be unreliable leading to a mixture of good and bad results, and at Silverstone the car failed to finish the race.

For the 1957 season Brian Lister designed a car round the Jaguar engine that had powered the Le Mans winning D-Types and in that season Archie Scott Brown won 12 of the 14 races he entered. In 1958 he looked set to repeat this success, but was unfortunately killed when driving the Lister Jaguar in an accident in a sports car race at Spa-Francorchamps in May of that year.

Friday's Ferrari

Before 1955 I had, to the best of my knowledge, only seen one Ferrari. This was during a school trip to France  in 1954 when we spent a couple of days in Paris then about a week in Tours visiting the chateaux of the Loire Valley. I saw the Ferrari in Paris and don't know what model it was, although looking at the models which were around at the time it was probably a 212 Inter.

In April 1955, though, I saw my first race at Oulton Park, the British Empire Trophy race which was run on a handicap basis and won by Archie Scott Brown in a Lister-Bristol. I remember that Duncan Hamilton drove a Jaguar D-type and the Aston Martin DB3S team was there whilst Colin Chapman drove one of his early Lotus cars. But the cars which really caught my eye were the two Ferrari 750S Monzas driven by Luigi Piotti and Mike Sparken. This Scaglietti bodied car remains my favourite Ferrari and below are photographs of two examples taken at historic racing meetings at Silverstone in the 1990s. I could sit and look at one of these for hours.

1997 Coys Historic Festival at Silverstone 26 July 1997. The serial number of this car is 0520M.

1999 Coys Historic Festival at Silverstone 31 July 1999

Footnote 18 Aug 2014:

I've since found that this second car is, in fact, a 1955 Ferrari 500 Mondial Spyder Scaglietti Series II, serial number 0564MD or 0424MD. The 750S Monza and 500 Mondial Series II are almost identical and as far as I can make out it's only the sizes of the engines that differ.