one handed race driver 1957

[djb]

I was watching an episode of The Gentleman's Motor Racing Diary the other night, and was intrigued by the mention of a Connaught driver named Archie Scott Brown who had only one hand. I believe I've got the name right, but anyway, what came to mind was the RAF pilot, Douglas Bader, who had only one leg. I'm sure that a number of you are familiar with him. When I was younger, I was a real plane nut, and had read a book by Bader about his wartime experiences, and even saw him give a talk in Ottawa in the mid to late 70's.
While Bader had "only" to operate a rudder pedal with his false leg, I'm very curious how Brown could have competitively driven a race car, let alone compete at the F1 level. In this episode of 1957, one of the races covered was at Monza, with footage of them clouting around the banking, but unfortunately, Brown was not allowed by the Italian race officials to take part in the race.
If any of you know a bit more of this driver, I would be curious to hear some details...

[TimD]

Hi djb,

You've raised the question of one of my alltime heroes. Archie Scott-Brown was an absolute inspiration, and an absolutely awesome driver. I was born too late to ever see him race, but I have looked for everything and anything about him ever since I first heard his story.

He was actually born with a withered arm, rather than suffering the disability later in life. Indeed, the arm was only one of a multitude of physical problems he had to endure in childhood, and he was really quite fortunate to make it to adulthood.

Archie is best remembered for his involvement with the Lister team, and there are many spectacular pictures of him conducting a big "knobbly" Lister Jaguar around Silverstone and Goodwood, holding the car in a beautiful drift, and all with just one good hand.

You're right - no one is really sure how he did it.

How good was he? Well, in touring car racing, he and the young Graham Hill campaigned similarly prepared Austin A35s, and Graham usually got shown the way around!

It all came to an end at Spa Francorchamps in 1958. At long last, Archie got the go ahead for an international racing permit, and took a Lister to the Spa sports car race. Before the event, a number of entrants had demanded the organisers remove several kerbing stones which were deemed unsafe, but nothing was done before the start. Archie's Lister clipped one of those stones, and crashed badly. Archie was too badly hurt to survive in the resulting fire, and so we lost one of the most awesome talents racing ever knew.

I can do no better than to recommend the book "Archie and the Listers" which won a prize about three years ago for best car book of the year, among a panel of motoring journalists. Even if the period and the sports car class is not your specialist subject, the book is so well written that Archie Scott-Brown the man comes to life again through the pages.

It's one of my "Desert Island" books for sure.

[Gerard]

William Archibald Scott-Brown was a short but sturdy, big-mustachioed young man who must have been one of racing's most courageous drivers. He was born without a right hand, but with a forearm that ended in a notched stump with which he held the wheel while shifting gears, and with a short leg, but you never would have known it to see the cheerful young Englishman driving.

Scott-Brown was born in Paisley, England, May 13, 1927. An only child, he was fortunate in having parents who were deep into the racing world, competing in an Alvis (for which his father was a dealer) at Brooklands and other top circuits. He never favoured motorcycles, so his mother arranged a 10th-birthday gift of a specially built miniature racing car, powered by a 125cc. lawnmower engine. After the usual British schooling, including a still remembered aggressive cricket career, Scott-Brown failed to get his economics degree, due mostly to his own unwillingness to settle down to classroom regimen, and began a casual job hunt.

He eventually took a position in 1949 as salesman for Dobie's Four Square Tobacco in Cambridge, staying 6 years. Meanwhile, he started to dabble with cars, beginning with 3-wheelers like the BSA and the Morgan. Occasionally, his father, who often travelled to South Africa on business, let him use a BMW, and this whetted his appetite for a regular car to replace the BSAs and Morgans. In 1950 the chance came when a grandmother left him enough money to buy an MG TC. From then on, he tinkered with the MG to obtain as much power from it as possible.

The following year, Scott-Brown was ready to try competition. It took him 2 years before he won his initial race in club meetings; then he ran out of funds. But at the opportune moment, Brian Lister was retiring from active racing, to become a sponsor and builder, eventually choosing Scott-Brown as his protege. In later years, Scott-Brown remembered it this way: 'Something in the way I handled the MG appealed to Brian, and so, despite a certain shortage of essential equipment, he asked me to drive for him on an all-expenses paid basis. Ofcourse, I said yes.'

Scott-Brown's rival drivers and Lister's fellow sponsors and builders, all friends of both Brian and Scott-Brown, would kid Lister about the economy of having a single-handed driver. The object of their derision enjoyed the seeming cruel joke as much as anyone. In the winter of 1953, the Lister-MG was born, a 1.5-litre car that proved to be underpowered, despite the ministrations of master mechanic Don Moore. Scott-Brown consistently ran 2nd in it at most club meetings.

Lister's answer to that was the Bristol-engined 2-litre model, debuting at Silverstone in May 1954. It won its class and was 5th overall, with Scott-Brown at the wheel. The car and its driver easily dominated the class for the next 2 years until its engine blew up in one of the last 1955 sports car races. Scott-Brown was ready to advance to bigger things, anyway. Soon thereafter, he quit the tobacco company, opened a garage in Cambridge, and was given a single-seater Connaught Grand Prix car to try at the Brands Hatch Boxing Day meeting in December 1955. An easy victory led, in tuen, to a Lance Macklin offer, which was quickly accepted, to co-drive a factory-engined Austin-Healey in the following March's 12-hour race at Sebring, Scott-Brown's initial visit to the Western Hemisphere.

Unfortunately, at Sebring, the engine acted up and they retired the car from the race. Flying back to England, Scott-Brown entered the Easter meeting at Goodwood in a Connaught, led Stirling Moss and other good drivers for 12 laps, then retired when his engine blew at the beginning of the 13th. Three straight victories in a Connaught at Brands Hatch started 1956 in the proper fashion; one drive setting a lap record, a feat duplicated later in the season at Snetterton. At Silverstone he finished 2nd to Moss in the up-and-coming Vanwall in May of the same year.

For 1957, Lister decided to have a try at the 3.5-litre class and slipped a Jaguar engine into one of his specials. Scott-Brown won the British Empire Trophy with it, then took 8 more races of the 11 in which he started that year. The following season, Scott-Brown spent 6 weels in New Zealand and won the Lady Wigram Trophy. Shortly afterwards, Briggs Cunningham purchased a Lister-Jaguar and hired Scott-Brown to co-drive it with Walter Hansgen at Sebring under his colours. Cunningham's entry was eliminated on the 4th lap of the airport course when Belgium's Olivier Gendebien drove up the Lister-Jaguar's tail with his Ferrari.

The Ferrari's left-front tire came to rest on Scott-Brown's shoulder; later, he displayed a shirt with the Ferrari's tread tracks clearly discernable near the neck opening. When this happened, both cars spun wildly off the track. Gendebien managed to get his car off the Lister-Jaguar, regaining the race after 35 minutes of frantic hammering on its front end in the pits, but Scott-Brown's car was through for the day. Perhaps the near-miss should have served as a warning to Scott-Brown, but he did not take it. He continued driving and competing, until a sports car race May 18, 1958, at Spa, Belgium, site of that year's Grand Prix of Europe.

The 31-year old driver had been around the demanding circuit severa times. Scott-Brown was increasing his speed despite wet conditions, when he reached a spot that some say was the same one at which Dick Seaman crashed back in 1939. On the wet, Scott-Brown spun off the course and into the trees. The car immediately caught fire; he had little chance of getting out.

Those who remember him think of his better days like the one in which he crashed but managed to climb out of the car, bloodstained, with a concussion. First to reach him was a small boy with an autograph album. Archie Scott-Brown had obliged him with a handsome, flourishing signature before quietly passing out.

[garyegrant]

Excellent post about a great driver, Gerard - just one thing...

Paisley is in SCOTLAND, and Archie was a SCOTSMAN, not an Englishman. Believe me - us Scots are touchy about things like that...

[Gerard]

Oops! Ofcourse Archie was from Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland.
Thanks for correcting me, Gary.

[djb]

Thankyou Tim and Gerard for your very informative responses to my question. I was saddened to hear of his death at Spa, after getting to that level in the sport despite his handicaps.
This gives thought to a couple of issues; firstly, how impressive it was that he attained the accomplishments he did- he must have been quite a plucky individual- the right attitude to have, given the circumstances. People like him and others, I immediately think of the Canadian, Terry Fox, a young man who lost a leg to cancer, and then completed more than half distance of a run across Canada, false leg and all, before falling ill again and dying shortly after, makes one rethink of what really is difficult as well as personal courage.
Secondly, can't help thinking of the safety changes that have taken place in motor racing over the years. You two know much more than me the details of these years, of how death and serious injury was just part of the sport, and while that was just the way it was, it still makes one thankfull for the changes that have occured.
Do you recall two or three years ago at Monaco when Phill Hill and a few other drivers roughly his age(can't remember who) were shown watching the race? The looks on their faces when Wurz broke his suspension in the tunnel and went sliding into the barriers, really showed the difference of eras regarding the seriousness of a crash. This touches onto my feelings that the relative safety of modern cars, can encourage rather boorish behavior on the track from some drivers, as they know they aren't going to smash their legs all to hell, be trapped in a burning car etc if they get into an accident. I stress that this is not to say that I disagree with safer cars, tracks etc, 'tis just an personal observation.
Anyhoo, thanks again. By the way, I still don't have the reflex to look up stuff on the net, but I did after reading your responses and was able to see what a Lister-Jag looked like...

[TimD]

I was checking through a 1955 edition of Motor Sport this afternoon on something entirely unrelated, and I found a wonderful snippet which summed up Archie Scott-Brown.

According to the report, he was racing at Charterhall in Scotland, in an unlimited sports car race. He had the misfortune to roll his Lister-Bristol on the opening lap.

Now, bear in mind a Lister-Bristol is an open fifties sports car, with no roll hoop, no bodywork above shoulder height, just an aero screen.

When they righted the car, and helped Archie out from under it, the track workers were utterly unable to dissuade him from getting back in and rejoining the race.

They really don't make drivers like they used to...!