By Les. Hughes
2025 review by James Loveridge
In the 1950s and 60s Britain was becoming a dominant power in motor sport; for example Cooper, Lotus and BRM were each World F1 champions and Jaguar were five times Le Mans winners over that period. Two of those Jaguar wins were by a small, independent, Scottish team: Ecurie Ecosse.
In his recently published, 652-page book ECURIE ECOSSE: ALL THE JAGUARS – ONE GLORIOUS DECADE Les Hughes purports to tell the story of this fascinating little business. I say purports to tell as there have been a lot of stories about Ecurie Ecosse that don’t always agree with what has been written by the two principals involved, David Murray and Wilkie Wilkinson. Indeed what is clear is that the end of Ecurie Ecosse in its original format was a sad reflection of its previous success. Wilkinson was very embittered and in 1969 Murry relocated to the Canary Islands which Mr. Hughes choses to note did not have an extradition treaty with Britain.
This book is concerned with what can probably be called the “David Murray” era. The name has been revived since but has nothing to do with the team, the subject of this really very interesting book.
A very valuable feature of the book is that all 116 of the events in which the team competed are covered, some in more detail than others. They had a go at F1 but with no success and it wasn’t just Jaguars they fielded. For a while they were almost the official Jaguar team but that ended when Murray managed to upset the people at the factory. Although not actually mentioned but obvious from the plethora of images, Ecurie Ecosse painted white lines on the noses of their blue painted Jaguars no doubt to reflect the colours of the flag of St Andrew..
The book devotes a lot of space to the stories of the key people who contributed to its success. All drivers who drove for it are named and, for a a brief period, some of them actually owned the cars the team raced. Rather more interesting from the historian’s point of view is information about the “back room” people such as Ron Gaudion, the Australian who got a job at Jaguar and then went to work with Ecurie Ecosse and was a major contributor to its success.
The book is lavishly illustrated to a very high standard but slightly irritating, as a good few illustrations are magnificent double spreads but without any explanations or captions. Of rather more concern is that on pages 136, 200 and 244 the last parts have gone walk-about – but as this is an Australian book perhaps that is understandable. There a few other instances where this very worthwhile production could have done with some proofreading.
The book, which comes in a slipcase, is published by Bronle Books of Brisbane, Australia, and is available in the UK from Chaters priced at £150. .
Publisher: Bronle Books of Brisbane
Price: £150.00 plus postage, from Chaters https://www.chaters.co.uk/
Description: 652 pages, hardback published without a dust jacket, presented in a slipcase, 30cm x 24.5cm. Limited edition of 350 numbered examples.
ISBN: 978-06467103-9-6
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