Lotus Emira takes on Scotland – and retraces the steps of motorsport greats
Scottish roads have nurtured some of the greatest driving talents ever seen. We experience some of those roads – and celebrate the country’s many motorsport heroes
My van knowledge is not great, but it was certainly a small Mercedes, much smaller than a Sprinter and I’m guessing with something like a 2-litre diesel engine under the bonnet. Somewhere around 120bhp? Whatever, I’d been behind it for miles, never getting a chance to pass, so quickly was it being driven through the corners. A bit of a shock when you’re in a Porsche Cayman GT4 yourself.
A few miles later the Merc pulled into a lay-by where a large collection of amazing cars were parked. It was 2015 and we were on Scotland’s now famous North Coast 500, shooting evo Car of the Year. Anyway, from the van leapt a young lass, not very tall, and wide-eyed at our selection of Lamborghini, McLaren, Porsche and Ferrari exotics. After she’d asked loads of questions, I complimented her on her skilled driving and confessed that I’d been unable to get past her. ‘Aye,’ she said, ‘and if I’d been in our other [quicker] van you wouldn’t ha’ got near me.’
I didn’t think about it much at the time, but more recently I’ve realised that this dice with a light van was proof that in Scotland people still know how to drive properly; still treat it as a skill. It’s a stark contrast to many other areas of the United Kingdom where lack of attention, discipline and courtesy have to a great extent spoiled the joy of driving. Certainly that is the case in the south-east. The quality of the roads in Scotland must have something to do with it, and the distances involved. You have to crack on if you’re driving across the country, and because so many of the roads are challenging, making good progress requires skill and concentration. The fact that there’s less traffic up here by comparison is a factor too.
A great place to grow up if you love cars and driving, then. Surely it must make you a better driver than growing up in Surrey? Perhaps it is why the country has produced so many incredibly talented racing drivers, including two of the greatest F1 drivers of all time in Jim Clark and Sir Jackie Stewart. But not just masters of the tarmac but rallying legends such as Colin McRae and his family. On two wheels, too, with legendary riders like Steve Hislop and Niall Mackenzie.
So it is with these thoughts in mind that we find ourselves outside the Jim Clark Motorsport Museum in Duns. I have visited the museum before but it was much smaller then, a simple memorial room. Substantially remodelled and four times larger than it was originally, the new museum houses a fabulous collection of trophies and photographs. Plus some great cars. On our visit, Clark’s Lotus 38 Indy 500 car is here, as well as his Lotus Cortina and a Jaguar D-type. The photographs in particular are very well presented and a vast number of them I’ve never seen before. Assistant curator Andrew Tulloch is extremely passionate and very keen to answer any question I throw at him, of which I have many.
I drove the Emira up from London and it is the most relaxing Lotus that I’ve ever driven. Although I prefer my cars with more than four cylinders (and my motorcycles with fewer), the 2-litre AMG engine does save weight in the Emira and suits its character better than the ageing Toyota V6. Even the lack of a manual gearbox is a shame rather than a disaster.
We’ve based ourselves at the comfortable Horse and Hounds pub and hotel in Bonchester Bridge on the A6088 south of Hawick, which I am told is pronounced Hoyk. Readers from north of the border are welcome to swear at the page. We’ve only been in Scotland for a couple of hours, and already it’s clear that this is still a terrific country for driving and, what’s more, you don’t have to venture to the top of it. The skills and courtesy that so impressed nine years ago are still very much evident.
We’re travelling briskly and have been following a Ford Ranger pickup for about half a mile. Its driver, spotting us in his rear-view mirror (thereby proving that it is not just a device for admiring one’s sunglasses) pulls into the next available lay-by and lets us pass, acknowledging that we’re making progress more swiftly than him. He is clearly of the mindset that says, ‘What is an extra ten seconds on my journey?’
Repeatedly we see the same level of thoughtfulness in other situations. Drivers of slower cars, when we’re overtaking them, back off a bit to lengthen the gap between them and the next car in front. A simple act that loses no time but makes it safer for all. And there’s no shaking of fists and flashing of lights that happens so often at home on the rare occasions these days when I’m in a position or in the mood to overtake. Paul Ripley’s driving techniques are clearly well read around these parts.
Along with us for the ride in 2015 were the brothers Franchitti, who arrived in Dario’s early 911. ‘I’ve never forgotten that girl in the van, either,’ says Dario today. ‘That for me summed up what it was like growing up around here. It was like one vast Nürburgring and you spent the whole time when you were young trying not to kill yourself. Between where we and Colin [McRae] grew up were the most fantastic roads. I brought my F40 up here recently and had some of the greatest drives of my life. I’ve left it at my home up here because this is where you can best enjoy it.’
The Franchittis grew up in the central belt, in Lanarkshire. ‘You can’t help but improve when you’re driving on roads like these,’ says Dario’s brother, Marino. ‘It’s not just about speed, it’s about keeping the flow going; you’re stitching things together, planning ahead. Even more so at night, which can be pretty frightening. Both our grandmothers were very good drivers, which backs up your argument that we Scots have it in our blood.’
I’m slightly ashamed to say that I didn’t travel north of the border until I was 26 years old. I’d visited India, Australia, America and many other countries but not the one on my doorstep. But that first visit in 1989 was memorable. We were following that year’s Ecurie Ecosse Historic Motor Tour of Scotland for a feature in Supercar Classics magazine. The photographer and I were in a Fiat Tipo but the entrants were more impressively tooled-up, with a 250 GTO and an ex-Gulf GT40 among the cars being driven. I remember a bobby on a bicycle arriving at a coffee stop near Glen Coe, asking politely if ‘the GT40 could please not drive at over 150mph through the Glen’.
On the Saturday night there was a dinner at which I sat opposite a very young-looking racing driver. Hugh McCaig, who ran Ecurie Ecosse at the time, introduced him as a great new Scottish hopeful. His name was Allan McNish.
‘I grew up in Dumfries,’ says McNish today, ‘and one of the greatest roads nearby was one that ran north from Moffat to a place called Devil’s Beef Tub. It’s where we used to retreat to after going south to steal your cattle. Anyway, there’s a corner on that road that’s exactly like Hawthorns on the Brands Hatch GP circuit. At tracks like Oulton Park there was a distinct relationship between the track and the road. You learned to focus on the road, watching out for potholes, frost and other hazards; you were always learning. You were also assessing risk all the time and that’s a key skill for a racing driver. I learned to drive fast at night on those roads and that certainly helped me in endurance racing. At my time at Le Mans we drove in all weathers and without doubt my experience of driving around Dumfries taught me how to deal with standing water.’
We are blessed with good weather for our trip, as we were on that 2015 eCoty NC500 extravaganza, too, which was a massive stroke of luck in a country known for its rain. ‘I was good in the wet,’ says Dario Franchitti, ‘because I was so used to it. It wasn’t such an advantage when I went to America [to race in IndyCar] as you might think because many of the US drivers had come up through dirt track and were pretty comfortable with lack of grip. That said, my wet weather skills went noticeably downhill while I was in the States.’
Niall Mackenzie, ex-works Yamaha, Honda and Suzuki Moto GP rider and triple British Superbike Champion, grew up in Stirlingshire and echoes Dario Franchitti’s thoughts on the value of growing up ‘within ten minutes of great roads’. ‘Surprisingly,’ says Mackenzie, ‘I was quite sensible on the road on motorcycles, but rather more reckless on four wheels. The weather was often not so good, but when you’re young you don’t think about it. This wet weather experience and not being intimidated by the lack of grip certainly helped me when I started out in the British Championship. By the time I got to grand prix racing, I was racing against Americans who had come up through dirt track and Australians who had come up through speedway.’
There’s a great poster in the Jim Clark museum. It’s a publicity shot of Clark standing next to his Lotus Elan outside Edington Mains, his farmhouse in Chirnside. The quote above reads: ‘I drive my Lotus Elan for pleasure – not because I have to.’ And yes, you can well imagine that Clark, famous for his smoothness and precision, would have loved the Elan on these roads. Just as Dario Francitti tells us he loves driving his own ex-Clark Lotus Cortina up here. Just as we are enjoying the Emira.
Scotland’s prodigious output of racing drivers isn’t solely down to its gloriously challenging bands of tarmac. There’s a tight community up here and that applies to the world of motorsport. ‘We followed in the footsteps of the giants that went before us,’ explains McNish. ‘We had brilliant people to follow and who went to infinite lengths to help us youngsters. My first ever car race was with Sir Jackie Stewart and he treated me absolutely the same as his son Paul who was also in the team.
‘Then there’s the Leslie dynasty. My dad was the late David Leslie’s Formula Ford mechanic and both David and his father did an incredible amount for young Scots racing drivers. So too did Hugh McCaig. It was like a family, a community; not that different in spirit to the Brazilians who would come over to the UK to race and all live in the same house.’
You feel this sense of camaraderie when you talk to the drivers; also the cross-pollination between different disciplines, between racing and rallying and even between four and two wheels. ‘I saw Jimmy McRae in what was a touring car race at Ingliston,’ remembers McNish, ‘and he thrashed everybody. And we all knew Colin and his brother Alister of course.’
Colin McRae certainly enjoyed driving the roads around his South Lanarkshire home. Dario Franchitti has a good anecdote: ‘One time Colin was driving in somewhat of a hurry to get to Glasgow airport to catch a flight. Making rapid progress in his Lamborghini Murciélago to be exact. Anyway, he made a bit of a mistake and ended up a long way into a field. Managing to get a lift the rest of the way to the airport, he then called brother Alister to ask him if he could arrange for the recovery of his Lamborghini. When Alister arrived at the scene he found the Murciélago to be a really long way off the road and, what’s more, it had come to rest in sixth gear.’
Franchitti goes on to ask us if his little brother had mentioned the time he, Dario, wrote off his Honda Accord Type R on a hump-backed bridge – and whether McNish had come clean about any of his incidents…
For me, today, the pleasure is not to be had driving flat-out, even though there are places where one can do that. Only nine years have passed since that great eCoty trip but even so, I do not drive today how I did then. The Lotus Emira, although I would prefer it with less weight, is perfect for these roads. It is the sense of freedom and the feeling that other people are enjoying what you’re enjoying that makes the driving experience here so special.
In the past we might well have included a map of the roads on which we travelled for this feature. We haven’t here because we don’t want them to be overrun in the way that sections of the NC500 have been. Selfishly, I want the great roads of the Borders to remain quiet, and for the locals to remain friendly to raiders from the south.
