Scottish Aviation Scamp

Scottish Aviation built aircraft at Prestwick, the Twin Pioneer and later the Bulldog trainer, and went on building them throughout the Scamp’s life; it was bought by Cammell Laird in 1966 and merged into British Aerospace in 1977 (see aircraft makers).source 1 In 1964 its Project Department, headed by Dr W. Gordon Watson, studied electric cars. The idea came from the battery tugs at the airport, and from something Watson noticed at his own station: wives waiting in cars to drive their commuting husbands home.source 2 A cheap second car for that run, he reasoned, did not need range or speed. His specification asked for two adults, or one adult and two children, with shopping; 56 km/h (35 mph); 0–30 mph in under 12 seconds; a laden restart on a 1 in 4 hill; at least 40 km (25 miles) of range; and a full charge in eight hours from a household socket. The running costs were reckoned at better than the equivalent of 150 miles per gallon.source 2 The name was a contraction of Scottish and amp.source 2

The farm cart

The first test vehicle, built early in 1965, was not much more than a seat on a chassis, and the works called it the farm cart. It reached 58 km/h (36 mph), went from 0 to 30 mph in 10.5 seconds, and covered 29 km (18 miles) of simulated town driving with six stops to the mile, against a target of 15 miles, or 42 km (26 miles) at constant throttle.source 2 From July 1965 Scottish Aviation courted the electricity industry, hoping to sell the car through the regional electricity boards’ showrooms. The Electricity Council and the South Western Electricity Board had the rig bodied in wood, light alloy and Perspex and registered as DAG 908C, and it was demonstrated at the board’s headquarters in Bristol and in London.source 2 At the closing press conference Stirling Moss drove it, and almost 200 enquiries followed from would-be customers and distributors around the world.source 2 Design, the journal of the Council of Industrial Design, took it up in July 1966: 2,134 mm (84 in) long and 1,168 mm (46 in) wide.source 2

Twelve cars, and MIRA

Twelve pre-production Scamps followed for development and market study, with glass-reinforced plastic bodies on wooden members, doors, two electric motors driving the rear wheels by chains, and Lucas lead-acid batteries. The first left Prestwick at the end of February 1967 for the Electricity Council’s stand at the Ideal Home Exhibition.source 2 The council sent two to the Motor Industry Research Association. MIRA’s evaluation of 13A 0004 in 1967 found flimsy knobs, poor demisting and a tiny luggage space; no interlock to stop the car being driven off while still plugged in; drive chains worn after 322 km (200 miles); a cracked wheel at 56 miles; two motor failures under hard acceleration; and pitching at all speeds, all at the 30–35 mph that was the most it could manage.source 2

The endurance test of 13A 0003, reported on 1 October 1968, was worse. The windscreen pillar cracked at 15 miles, front rims buckled and tyres burst again and again, the footwells flooded an inch deep at 87 miles, the spare wheel fell out of its compartment at 481, and the dash screws pulled out of the wood at 523. At 738 miles the steering was dangerously indefinite and spring leaves had broken, and at 979 a track rod broke and the car stopped dead. Either failure would normally have ended the test, but the testers patched the car up and completed 1,611 km (1,001 miles).source 2

The Electricity Council called the Scamp “unfit for purpose”, returned its cars and asked to cancel the contract. Lucas’s batteries were lasting about 12 months instead of 18, and longer-lived ones would have cost more than the project could find. Scottish Aviation ended the work in 1968 and looked for partners; Reliant and the Rootes Group showed interest.source 2 Of the pre-production cars, battery makers in England and Finland bought two, and two stayed at Prestwick with the company and with Scottish Express.source 2

Five Scamps are believed to survive.source 2 The yellow DTD 141E was in the National Motor Museum’s collection until 1995, then passed to National Museums Scotland; it was shown at the National Museum of Flight at East Fortune and moved in 2012 to the museums’ collection centre at Granton, Edinburgh. The red LHT 147E, once at the Myreton Motor Museum, is now at the Dundee Museum of Transport, and the light-blue LHT 149E is at the Grampian Transport Museum, after a spell with the Scottish Motor Museum Trust at Loch Lomond. Two white cars, LHT 150E and OSD 697H, are privately owned.source 2source 1