The Ascari Ecosse is a

mid-engined In automotive engineering, a mid-engine layout describes the placement of an automobile engine in front of the rear-wheel axles, but behind the front axle. History The mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive format can be considered the original layout of ...

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 ...

produced by

Ascari Cars Ascari Cars Ltd. was a British automobile manufacturer based in Banbury, England, and founded by Klaas Zwart. Zwart was the former chairman and majority owner of oil and gas company Petroline, which designed and manufactured its own downhole ...

from 1998 to 1999. It was the first production car released by the company and is essentially the production version of the Ascari FGT concept race car.

FGT

In 1995 Ascari introduced the FGT at various European motor shows, designed by

Lee Noble Lee Antony Noble is a British entrepreneur, car designer and engineer. He is the founder of the sports car companies Noble Automotive Ltd in 1999 and Fenix Automotive in 2009. He is also the designer of some low-volume sports cars, including the Ult ...

. It featured a 6.0 L mid-mounted Chevrolet fuel injected

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and u ...

. At the same time as the launch of the car, Klaas Zwart, a Dutch racing driver expressed interest in the car and ended up buying the entire company along with the design rights of the car. The new owner of the company chose to enter the FGT in racing, the race car featured a Ford Modular

and was entered into the

British GT Championship The British GT Championship is a sports car racing series based predominantly in the United Kingdom. The series was originally created by the British Racing Drivers' Club in 1993 and, for its first two seasons, was known as the National Sports GT ...

. With the sole car produced meeting the homologation requirements, Zwart won an event at Silverstone Circuit in the car's debut season of 1995. The car also attempted to qualify for 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 race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active endurance racing event. Unlike fixed-distance races whose ...

, but was not fast enough to pass pre-qualifying. The car continued to maintain pace with newcomers to British GT Championship in 1996, before Zwart partnered with William Hewland, owner of

Hewland Hewland is a British engineering company, founded in 1957 by Mike Hewland, which specialises in racing-car gearboxes. Hewland currently employ 130 people at their Maidenhead facility and have diversified into a variety of markets being particul ...

engineering, for a partial season in 1997 with only a best finish of fourth at Donington Park. Following the 1997 season, Ascari built 17 production versions of the FGT dubbed the Ecosse.

Ecosse

The Ecosse was unveiled by Ascari at the 1999 Earls Court Motor Show. The Ecosse was given a BMW V8 engine in place of the Chevrolet and Ford units used in the FGT, although the engine was further tuned by

Hartge Hartge was a third party car tuning company specializing in BMW, MINI, Juno, and Range Rover cars. Founded in 1971 in Merzig, Germany, the company moved to its current location in Beckingen in 1974. The company is known for putting larger, mor ...

. The 4.4 L engine produces around , while later larger 4.7 L units produced around . The last three cars were fitted with the

5.0 litre V8 engine based on the 4.4 L BMW unit. The new engine produced around and of torque. The last car was built at Blandford in 2000 with a

sequential manual transmission A sequential manual transmission, also known as a sequential gearbox, or a sequential transmission, is a type of non-synchronous manual transmission used mostly for motorcycles and racing cars. It produces faster shift times than traditional ...

and is still in possession of Ascari. The spaceframe chassis and wishbone suspension carry a lightweight fibreglass body, weighing . The Ecosse, with the larger 4.7 litre engine, can accelerate from in 4.1 seconds, while top speed is measured to be . Only 17 were produced. The Ecosse was replaced by the Ascari KZ1 in 2003.

References

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External links

Diseno Art
- Ascari Ecosse Ecosse First car made by manufacturer Rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive vehicles Sports cars Cars introduced in 1998