Scott
Motorcycle History
Scott motorcycles
The Scott Motorcycle Company was
owned by Scott Motors (Saltaire) Limited, Shipley,
West Yorkshire, England and was a well known
producer of motorcycles and light engines for
industry.
The company was founded by Alfred
Angas Scott (1875 - 1923), born in Manningham,
Bradford. A prolific inventor, he took out over
50 patents between 1897 and 1920, mostly concerning
two-stroke engines and road vehicles.
Scott was a keen potholer and
the history of the Gritstone club of which he
was president records "In July 1923 Scott
travelled back to Bradford in his open Sociable
wearing his wet potholing clothes. He contracted
pneumonia which, in the days before antibiotics,
proved to be fatal."
Motorcycles
After some experiments with one
of his engines fitted to a push bike, Scott
designed a complete motorcycle from scratch
featuring a 450 cc two-stroke twin cylinder
engine mounted in a triangulated frame and an
ingenious two-speed chain transmission in which
the alternative ratios were selected by clutches
operated by a rocking foot pedal. Another innovation
was a kick start, which he is credited with
inventing. The first few machines to his design
were produced by Jowett in 1908 and soon after
he set up as a manufacturer in his own right.
With their pioneering design Scott
motorcycles were successful in many sporting
events before World War I including fastest
laps at the Isle of Man TT in 1911, 1912, 1913
and 1914 with outright wins at the same event
in 1912 and 1913, very valuable publicity in
those days. These were specialist racing motorcycles
though and Scott's road machines, which by 1912
had grown to 532cc were aimed primarily at the
Edwardian gentleman looking for a mechanical
alternative to the horse, here the smoothness
of the engine and ease with which the two-speed
gear could be manipulated won it many customers
over the more conventional single cylinder four-stroke
machines of the day.
Scott's first sporting model offered
to the public was the Squirrel of 1922 which
had a slightly smaller 486cc engine to bring
it within the 500cc competition limit, but,
with aluminium pistons and careful preparation,
it produced more power. In addition, many heavy
accessories such as foot boards and leg shields
which had been fitted to the touring models
were dispensed with making for a very light
and lively machine. It was successful recipe
and the Super Squirrel, with a further revised
engine of 498cc or 596cc, soon followed, forming
the mainstay of production in the mid 1920's.
Although they never regained their pre-war form,
Scotts continued to compete successfully in
sporting events scoring a 3-4 in the 1922 TT
and a third in 1924. A three speed gearbox with
conventional clutch was offered from 1923 and
in this form the machine had some success as
a trials mount.
By the late 1920's the design
was starting to fall behind; the last major
change had been the introduction of the 'new'
Flying Squirrel (the model name had been used
before on a tuned version of the Super) in Autumn
1926 for the 1927 season, which standardised
the three-speed gearbox in a new duplex frame
with a redesigned engine, though still of the
same basic layout and 498cc or 596cc displacement.
Another third place in the 1928 TT was cause
for celebration and the introduction of the
TT Replica model which must have helped sales
for a season or two.
Scott-TT-Replica of 1930/31
A very limited production luxury three-cylinder
model of 747 cc, a 300cc air cooled austerity
model - the Lightweight Squirrel, and even a
98cc autocycle - the Cyc-Auto, supplemented
various minor variations on the Flying Squirrel
theme, such as the Sprint Special and Clubman
Special, to maintain customer interest through
the 1930's but, when production restarted after
World War II, it is perhaps as much a reflection
on the British motorcycle industry in general
as a tribute to the original design, that the
Flying Squirrel had remained substantially unchanged
since 1926.
In 1950 the company went into liquidation and
was acquired by Matt Holder's Aerco Jig and
Tool Company in Birmingham. Aerco initially
continued to build the same model - probably
assembled from spares, but soon a new frame
was designed featuring rear suspension. These
'Brum' Scotts remained available into the 1960's.
An attempt was made to introduce a new 493 cc
engine with flat top pistons and loop scavenging,
but the resulting machine, called the Scott
Swift, was not a success.
The Scott Sociable
Alfred Angas Scott left the company in 1915
and after World War 1 formed the Scott Autocar
Company in nearby Bradford to make a civilian
version of his proposed military 3 wheel motorcycle/car
hybrid called the Sociable.
Stationary engines
During the 1930's Scott also produced a series
of small industrial or stationary engines, probably
seeking new markets to supplement income from
falling sales of its increasingly outmoded motorcycles.
Some of these were to a greater or lesser extent
derived from the motorcycle types - the DSE
for instance was a watercooled version of the
Lightweight Squirrel engine, while the SE shared
bore and stroke dimensions with the longstroke
Flyers of the period - but one in particular
stands out as an original and very interesting
design.
Now generally referred to as the 'PA' from
the first two characters of the engine number,
the unit was designed in response to a Ministry
requirement for a portable generator to supply
electrical power to the Bofors anti-aircraft
gun and its Kerrison Predictor. In a strange
twist of fate, this unit went on to be manufactured
during World War II not only by Scott but also
by Jowett - the same company which had built
the first motorcycles to Alfred Angas' design
some thirty years earlier. The engine featured
a modern loop scavenge design with two opposed
main transfer ports augmented by a third 'boost'
port opposite the exhaust. This arrangement,
covered by UK patent number 512980 assigned
to William Cull and Scott Motors Saltaire Ltd
in 1939, is usually assumed to be of post war
origin - eg Bossaglia's Two-Stroke High Performance
Engine Design & Tuning of 1968 states "this
idea has in many cases produced good results
and was quickly adopted for motorcycle racing
engines and also in power boats after its first
appearance in the 125cc MZ in 1957". Scott
was clearly not short of design talent it is
perhaps a shame more of it wasn't applied to
its motorcycles.
|
