By Pete Vack
Photos by Graham Gauld
The story of Archie Scott Brown is incredible, unbelievable, astonishing, inspiring, heart rendering and finally, tragic; and in today’s world, such accomplishments would be totally impossible.
He was born on Friday the 13th of May, 1927 in Glasgow, Scotland, with no proper right forearm, “merely and elementary thumb and palm, which started below the elbow.” His tiny legs lacked a shinbone, and the legs were “radically twisted and bowed, and the club-feet were tiny, with no discernible toes.” The right foot was twisted outwards about 90 degrees, the left foot almost 180 degrees. Of the limbs, only the left arm and hand were normal. His mother had the German measles (rubella) during her pregnancy.*
At the age of two, he began a series of 22 separate operations over a period of two years to straighten his legs and allow toes to form. While the operations were considered successful, Archie would grow to only 5 foot 1 inch in height, and walk with a limp. He would never have a full right arm or hand.
At the 1956 British Grand Prix support race Silverstone, Archie pulled off the circuit with the Lister Maserati. He is leaning over the cockpit and his shortened right arm can be seen resting on the top of the steering wheel. The car was just sold last Friday for £575k by Bonhams.
Equipped with these liabilities which would send most of us into deep and dark depressions, Archie Scott Brown instead became a world class driver who competed on even terms with Stirling Moss, Masten Gregory, Roy Salvadori, and won. He also participated in Formula One events with a Connaught, placing well in a car which did little but fill the grids. From 1951 to 1958 Archie scored at least 65 first place finishes in class or overall, driving everything from an MGTD to the latest Lister Jaguar, an astonishing record for a normal driver, much less one with only one fully formed arm.
A driver on the edge
If driving with only one arm (he was able to hold on to the steering wheel with his right stub arm) wasn’t enough, Archie perfected the four-wheel drift and was constantly at odd angles to the road, drifting from corner to corner in a display of unequaled car control.
Archie’s map of Silverstone showing his method of drifting.
As an eleven-year-old I read about the Scott Brown driving style in Sports Car Graphic, complete with the above map of Silverstone. While we couldn’t be there to see him in action, the diagram said volumes.
And while we were merely looking at magazines, VeloceToday correspondent Graham Gauld was busying photographing and meeting Archie, who was, after all, a fellow countryman. Gauld said that “Anyone who ever watched William Archibald Scott Brown drive a racing car, then met him face to face, simply had to marvel at his phenomenal car control.”
“Archie was a nice guy and great fun. But because of his birth defects, the RAC had initially refused him a racing license even though he had shown his brilliance in sprint meetings down south. Eventually he was given a full international racing license for the 1955 season,” recalled Graham.
At that time his career really got underway, driving primarily for Brian Lister who virtually built cars around him, powered by MG, Bristol, Maserati and later Jaguar engines.
Today of course, Archie would not be able to obtain a racing license. Graham wrote, “Sadly, he was killed in a racing accident at Spa in 1958 when driving one of Brian Lister’s Lister Jaguars, and though his accident could have happened to anyone, it created more stringent regulation regarding driver disabilities and the issuing of licenses.”
Last picture Graham Gauld took of Archie with the Lister Jag at the British Empire Trophy, Oulton Park, April 12, 1958.
Archie’s driving style – almost unique – would also have a limited life. Most drivers knew that while drifting was spectacular, it was usually quicker to slide less. Archie achieved equally fast laps, but did so because tires were high and narrow, and had incredibly stiff sidewalls but limited grip. By 1958, Dunlop had developed the R5 racing tire, lower in profile and with much more flexible sidewalls, and offered a lot more grip. It put huge strains on the suspension systems and along with mid-engine layouts, spelled the end of drifting as the fastest way through a corner. The new R5 compound was installed on Archie’s last powerful Lister Jaguar, the extra load, causing several steering failures before his final race at Spa on May 18, 1958.
“Obviously there were those who blamed his infirmity, but Jim Clark – who was driving in his first international event at that same Spa meeting – was in no doubt that the changing conditions put Scott Brown in a situation he could not have avoided,” said Graham.
But Graham also noted that it was Archie’s accident that put Jim Clark off Spa. “Jim once remarked, ‘You know in Grand Prix racing, I love Monaco and never won a Grand Prix there, but I hated Spa and won there four times.’ He told me how he noticed that the rain had started over on the back of the circuit and then he saw a cloud of black smoke go up and drove past Archie’s burning car.”
We had help from Graham Gauld, who wrote quite a bit about Archie in his book, Scottish Motor Racing and Drivers, Havelock Publishing 2004. You can find a copy at Chaters chaters.co.uk. https://www.chaters.co.uk/advanced-search
A very readable, well written and thoroughly interesting book was written about Scott Brown in 1995 (Patrick Stephens, Ltd) by Robert Edwards, titled Archie and the Listers. Find it at a variety of booksellers for a variety of prices ranging from $80 on up.
*Quotes from book. Babies who are infected can have serious birth defects, called congenital rubella syndrome, according to Webmd.com.
One of the great (and unsung, at least here in the states) hero drivers and, although I never saw him race, one of my favorites. What an unbelievable story! Would make a great movie.
I always thought I was much younger than Graham Gauld but from the above it appears not. In 1956, Archie’s front door was 50 feet from my family’s front door across Portugal Place, in Cambridge. Portugal Place, near the center of the university city, was not a street, more a mews-like walking – no cycling – path between two rows of fairly grand town houses. On the corner, the side Archie’s mother’s house was on, was Mrs. Harper’s house – she with over 100 cats inside – and next to her was the house of one Dr. Francis Crick, he the co-finder of “the double helix structure of the DNA molecule.” We were much more ordinary.
Archie and I were friends. He would invite me to wash his car in the street proper, which was 300 feet towards a big park known as Jesus Green. I recall washing only an Austin A30. I would soak the car with a soapy sponge and Archie would wash leather it dry, wringing the leather out by twisting it around his hand-less arm with his only hand. He could twist so hard it would crackle!
The A30 – which came from Marshall’s Austin dealership a couple of blocks away where my father would buy gas for his Bedford Dormobile (oh dear!) – was stored just down New Park Street at the King and Harper (Morris, MG, Riley, Wolseley) garage who rented a line of lock-up garages to local residents. My dad had one, Archie had two. A30 in one and boxes of Four Square cigarettes in the other. Archie was a rep for Dobie’s, the Scottish (and Indian) tobacco brand. This was his sample store. Some of them were “seconds,” these were often given to me to pass onto both parents, long time smokers, but I recall my mother not liking them! In a fourth lock-up was a Goggomobil and in a fifth apparently there was an HRG, but I never saw it.
In September of 1956 I was sent to boarding school and I don’t remember ever seeing Archie again. Let me add mentor to his talent list.
As a Bonhams consultant I was delighted to see the Lister Maserati in the Goodwood catalog…what a rare genius the partnership of Archie with Brian Lister was!
Reply from GG
He was your kind of guy Burt. Easy to get on with and funny with it. Graham
From GG…
Tim, you still around ? Seems so. Did not realise you had known Archie from the Cambridge days. When I was writing the John Tojeiro biography Brian admitted the original Tojeiro race car had been ordered by him fitted with a JAP twin motorcycle engine that scared the living daylights out of him so he offered it to Archie to drive and Archie had no problem despite the fact it had a tendency to hit full power when you didn’t expect it. Lister sold the car to a Scottish friend of his Peter Hughes so I saw a lot of the car when Peter had it. Again it was amazing Archie could control it. Hope you keep fit and well Tim. You published one of my books too. Brave man.
Graham
I enjoyed the article today on Archie Scott Brown. I have long admired him for what he was able to accomplish despite his disabilities. I was also reminded today that he and I share a common birthday, May 13th. Again, thanks and great job! Another reason I look forward to Tuesday emails.
Regards,
Jerry Liudahl
Old Irish Racing – Jaguar
Website: oldirish.com
For me, as a teenager with a missing hip due to osteomyelitis who wanted to race, Scott Brown was an inspiration. Sadly by the time we moved to Cambridgeshire in 1960 he had already gone. But we came close as a project to set up a BMW/Alfa dealership in the area in 1963 found us meeting his business partner, a man called Morris I think who drove a 356 Porsche. It didn’t work out but we compensated by having Lister’s build us a stainless steel fireplace surround. Cambridge was a thriving motor sporting bee hive and we were lucky to have Don Moore work his magic on our Alfa engines in the early days before he retired. Another funny memory is of trying to get Doc Shepherd to do my first race medical…..one thing leads to another. I think I have two copies of Archie and the Listers. Spa was so dangerous. It even killed touring car drivers quite easily. And of course poor Dick Seaman, a prewar Cambridge University Auto Club graduate, almost in the same place as Archie. However every time I go to Spa, thoughts of the Battle of the Bulge and the huge loss of life in the area rearranges perspective. I think it was the shortness of life in the War that made the loss of life in motor sport afterwards seem just like an echo of what had gone before.
Great fresh stories from Graham Gauld and Jon Dooley…I know who you are although we never met. You are dead right about Cambridge being a motorsports hot bed. I remember hanging out at Don Moore’s shop and then walking home past Doc Shepherd’s place nearby; his Austin A40 was outside one time. Then there was Christabel Carlisle and John Aley at the Moore shop, another time. One weekend I left the Moore shop with a Mike(?) Campbell-Cole who towed his Mini-Cooper on a trailer behind a Mini Van. That was a pretty slow journey to Brands Hatch. I think I hitch-hiked back home in the rain…
Tim
I felt sure we had briefly met at Laguna Seca during the Ferrari celebration. You mention Christabel great girl quick driver
Graham