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KC Hill
Craig Hill
Oracle of DelphiAscari Ecosse
February 14th 2008 12:52
The Ascari Ecosse was the first production car made by Ascari Cars, launched in 1998. It is based on the Ascari FGT concept car from a few years prior.
At the same time as the launch of the concept car, Klaas Zwart of the Netherlands chose to enter the FGT in racing, running a Ford V8 engine and entering into the British GT Championship. With the one concept car meeting the homologation requirements, Zwart managed to win an event at Silverstone Circuit in the car's debut season of 1995. The car would also attempt to qualify for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but would not be fast enough to pass prequalifying. The car continued to maintain pace with newcomers to British GT in 1996, before Zwart would partner with William Hewland, owner of Hewland engineering, for a partial season in 1997 with only a best finish of fourth at Donington Park.
Following the 1997, Ascari would turn to mass-producing the FGT, renaming it the Ecosse.
The spaceframe chassis and wishbone suspension carried a lightweight fibre glass body, weighing in at just 1250 kg (2756 lb). The Ecosse, with the larger 4.7 liter engine, was able of going from zero-to-sixty in 4.1 seconds while top speed was achieved at 200 mph (322 km/h). Only 17 examples are known to have been produced, however only nine of these remain today as the other eight have all been destroyed.
The Ecosse would eventually be replaced by the Ascari KZ1 in 2003.
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