The Ecurie Ecosse LM69 is a

sports car A sports car is a car designed with an emphasis on dynamic performance, such as handling, acceleration, top speed, the thrill of driving and racing capability. Sports cars originated in Europe in the early 1900s and are currently produced by ...

manufactured by Ecurie Cars Ltd - a Joint Venture between Building The Legend,

Ecurie Ecosse Ecurie Ecosse (French: "Scotland Stable") was a motor racing team from Edinburgh, Scotland. The team was founded in November 1951 by Edinburgh businessman and racing driver David Murray and mechanic Wilkie Wilkinson. Its most notable achieveme ...

& Design Q. The car is meant to be both a tribute to the

Jaguar XJ13 The Jaguar XJ13 was a prototype racing car developed by Jaguar Engineering Director William Heynes to compete at Le Mans in the mid 1960s. It never raced, and only one was produced. The car has not been officially valued, but a £7 million bid ...

and a

race car Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organi ...

built in compliance with the 1969 Le Mans regulations.

Concept

Originally commissioned by Neville Swales of Building The Legend Limited, the LM69 was developed as a homage to the 1966 Jaguar XJ13 race car which was intended to participate to the

24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused Sports car racing, sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance r ...

. However, changes in the homologation rules made the XJ13 suddenly obsolete.

Jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus '' Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...

halted the project and the only built XJ13, not being able to enter any race, was put in storage. The LM69 was never intended to be an exact replica of the XJ13; rather, Ecurie Ecosse tried to imagine what the XJ13 might have looked like if Jaguar continued its development until 1969. This explains the marked retro design, as well as the absence of post-1960s technology: the LM69 would have complied with any 1969 Le Mans regulation, thus virtually allowing Scottish racing team

to participate to the 1969 event (hence its name) and racing in the same league of the

Ford GT40 The Ford GT40 is a high-performance endurance racing car commissioned by the Ford Motor Company. It grew out of the "Ford GT" (for Grand Touring) project, an effort to compete in European long-distance sports car races, against Ferrari, which wo ...

and

Porsche 917 The Porsche 917 is a sports prototype race car developed by German manufacturer Porsche to exploit the regulations regarding the construction of 5-litre sports cars. Powered by a Type 912 flat-12 engine which was progressively enlarged from ...

Design

The car was commissioned by Neville Swales of Building The Legend Limited and designed by Howard Guy and his team at Design Q Unlike the heavier all-aluminium XJ13, the LM69's body is made of both

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

and

composite material A composite material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite, which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or ...

s, covering a purpose-built

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

. The LM69 also sports a closed cockpit, a more refined aerodynamics and wider tires. The mid-mounted engine lies under a transparent deck lid.

Specifications

The LM69 uses a mid-mounted, quad-

cam Calmodulin (CaM) (an abbreviation for calcium-modulated protein) is a multifunctional intermediate calcium-binding messenger protein expressed in all eukaryotic cells. It is an intracellular target of the secondary messenger Ca2+, and the bind ...

V12 engine A V12 engine is a twelve-cylinder piston engine where two banks of six cylinders are arranged in a V configuration around a common crankshaft. V12 engines are more common than V10 engines. However, they are less common than V8 engines. The fi ...

designed as a near-period reproduction, and called ''tera''. It is based on the same design of the original Jaguar power unit, and comes with either 6.1 L, or its stroked version developed by Neville Swales with capacity expanded to 6.8 L.

Distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations * Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...

and

injection Injection or injected may refer to: Science and technology * Injective function, a mathematical function mapping distinct arguments to distinct values * Injection (medicine), insertion of liquid into the body with a syringe * Injection, in broadca ...

are standard for the period; modern, electronic optional for the latter would be available. The transmission includes a 5-speed

manual gearbox A manual transmission (MT), also known as manual gearbox, standard transmission (in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States), or stick shift (in the United States), is a multi-speed motor vehicle transmission system, where gear changes ...

. Ecurie Ecosse did not provide official performance specifications for the LM69 besides the claim that the 6.8 L version would exceed .The car is purportedly able to accelerate from 0 to in 3.2 seconds and to reach a top speed of . By comparison, the original 5.0 L V12 engine of the XJ13 had an output of which could bring the Jaguar up to in fifth gear.

Production

Only 25 units of the LM69 are planned to be produced, which is exactly the minimum requirement for the 1969 FIA homologation. Each car would be hand-built in England at the Ecurie Cars factory, and is priced £875,000 ($1.54 million) for the standard configuration. Despite its background as a race car, the LM69 is road-legal at least in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

.
The first built LM69 was exhibited at the 2020 International

Concours d'Elegance ''Concours d'Elegance'' ( French: ''concours d'élégance'') is a term of French origin that means a "competition of elegance" and refers to an event where prestigious vehicles are displayed and judged. It dates back to 17th-century France, whe ...

Hampton Court Palace Hampton Court Palace is a Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. The building of the palace began in 1514 for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the chie ...

, London.

References

{{reflist Cars introduced in 2019 Rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive vehicles Sports cars Coupés 2020s cars Retro-style automobiles 24 Hours of Le Mans Cars of England First car made by manufacturer