The claims are bold. Really bold. Top speed of 200mph, 0-60mph in 4.1sec, drag factor of 0.31, 400bhp, 1250kg: even by today's standards, that's fast, sleek, powerful and extremely light. The Ascari Ecosse is quite the supercar.
The what, I hear you ask? Exactly. So here's a very small number: 16. Only that many built, in the late 1990s, yet this car has quite a heritage, and dates from an era when it seemed that - suddenly - supercars were coming from every angle. Possibly the greatest supercar of all time was a product of that decade - the McLaren F1 - as were such greats as the Bugatti EB110 and Ferrari's F50, while the 550 Maranello revived the spirit of the Daytona.
But what about those we remember a little less well? The likes of those include the Yamaha OX99-11, only three prototypes built, all around Yamaha's Formula 1 V12 engine, which otherwise powered Brabhams on track. Or how about the two-off Nissan R390, a V8-powered homologation job? The wonderful Cizeta-Moroder V16T, the weird Panoz Esperante, Italy's De Tomaso Guarà, France's Venturi 400GT, maybe the Spectre R42 (basically a GT40 come back to haunt us)... I could go on.
Into that world arrived the Ascari Ecosse, another race-inspired road car with oodles of power from a well-bred V8, in this case a mid-mounted Hartge-tuned BMW engine. And it grew from a proposal made by one Lee Noble.
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Esta historia es de la edición February 2023 de Octane.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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Will China Change Everything? - China is tearing up modern motor manufacture but is yet to make more than a ripple in the classic car world. That could be about to change dramatically
China now dominates the automotive world in a way even Detroit in its heyday would have struggled to comprehend.Helped by Government incentives, the new car world is dominated by China's industries: whether full cars that undercut Western models by huge amounts, ownership of storied European brands such as Lotus and Volvo, or ownership and access to the vast majority of raw materials that go into EV cars, its influence is far-reaching and deep. However, this automotive enlightenment hasn't manifested itself in the classic world in any meaningful way - until now.
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