Ron Flockhart drives the winning D-type. Wilkie Wilkinson rides alongside
As a reward for saving its face in 1956 Jaguar lent, almost furtively, the latest 3.8 litre fuel injected engine to Ecurie Ecosse for 1957. Its 212.53kW (285bhp) made it faster not only than last year’s cars but also all the other D-types, including Ecosse’s second, still on carburettors. Ron Flockhart and Ivor Bueb led a clean sweep of four D-types, and yet another came 6th. Ecurie Ecosse had outpaced and outlasted 54 of the world’s best sports racing cars.
Jaguar went along with tribute dinners and press presentations, praising what was ostensibly now the world’s most successful private sports car team. Although not officially a surrogate, EE had enjoyed support even before that 1957 engine on which, it was made plain to Wilkie Wilkinson, he must not lay a hand. Also, it had to be returned forthwith. Despite everything Wilkinson and Murray claimed, Jaguar knew more far about race-preparing engines than he or Ecurie Ecosse ever did.
FRW England’s motor racing career started with B Bira in the 1930s.
Without fanfare Jaguar Cars’ liaison with Ecurie Ecosse reverted to the unofficial basis with which Frank Raymond Wilton England, technically its Service Director, managed Jaguar’s racing policy. At 6ft 5in “Lofty” England called the shots over Ecurie Ecosse’s connections that he applied to any private owner, such as the Le Mans XK120s of 1950. Still, nobody actually said much, until for 1958 David Murray announced at the North British banquet that Ecurie Ecosse was buying a Lister Jaguar. The D-type was no longer competitive. Others such as Equipe National Belge were doing much the same.
What had really happened? Besides the reluctance Le Patron, as Murray liked to be called, of paying Jaguar’s workshop rates, was Bill Heynes’ disillusion. Jaguar’s head engineer regarded Wilkinson’s work on a 3 litre XK as risible. The engine was nether reliable nor powerful and there was deep concern over Murray’s confidence in the cocky Cockney. Wilkie had made his name polishing the ports, freeing up bearings and balancing crankshafts preparing Evans’s Bellvue Garage MGs for Brooklands in the 1930s. Even Ecosse mechanics had doubts. Wilkie belonged to an era when engines were tuned, literally, by ear. Carburettors were adjusted and balanced by listening to air rush through them with a stethoscope. Fuel injection and electronic ignition had consigned such “tuning” to history.
Brooklands, 1930s. Wilkie Wilkinson “wizard turner” on right with the Evanses MGs
It had led to pointed correspondence between Murray and Jaguar’s head of publicity, astute, austere Bill Rankin. “Mr Heynes assures me that all development work for Ecurie Ecosse, which has had successful results, has been carried out by us. Neither Mr Heynes nor indeed anybody here has anything but the highest regard for Wilkie’s abilities, but it does seem to me that there is some danger of his being built up into some kind of Freddie Dixon legend, that led to the belief Freddie knew more about developing Rileys than people who designed Riley cars.”
Next time: Wilkie, Ian Stewart, Bill Boddy