ScottTTReplica
Though over nine decades old, the Yorkshire-made two-stroke is still a thrilling performer.
Our story starts in Penarth, in the vale of Glamorgan, Wales, in the hot summer of 1968. At the popular bikers’ cafe on the Newport Road, local teenager Andy Rowett has just pulled up on his 350cc Triumph Tiger 90, and, turning off his engine, he is made very much aware of the unusual sounding bike that has just pulled up behind him. For Andy – who is now well recognised by regular readers of the magazine, allowing us to sample various machines from his eclectic collection – it was a memorable day, as the machine which, in his words, ‘made a weird noise and smoked a lot’ would ignite an interest in the marque which has so far lasted for over five decades. The result is this month’s test bike, a rare 1930 TT Replica Scott which after a 10 year wait eventually joined his diverse motorcycling menagerie in 2007. I was eager to fire the bike into action, but like Andy’s previously tested ex-TT 50cc Itom it’s very much a refugee from the racetrack. There is no kick-start, so firing up involves either a quick ‘paddle’ or a run and bump start – not the thing to stall at the bottom of a steep hill – but before we sample the iconic British twin and hear that distinctive ‘yowl,’ we’ll turn the clock back to the turn of the 20th century and reflect on the early years of the Scott twostroke.
Born on October 5, 1874, at Manningham in Bradford, Alfred Angas Scott was the 10th son in a family of 12 children and on leaving school trained as an engineer, first with Douglas and Grant of Kirkcaldy and then with W Sisson and Co of Gloucester. Period reports would suggest that at the turn of the century Alfred returned to his birthplace, where he worked as a consulting engineer, renting premises at Snowden Street which he used as his experimental workshop.
It was here that, along with his elder brother Arthur, he designed and built his first two-stroke which was later used to drive some of the machinery at Snowden Street. At the same time, Alfred commenced work on a 2hp twin cylinder two-stroke engine which was initially used to power a motor boat and then attached to the frame of his Premier bicycle, for the first Scott motorcycle. This engine had steel cylinders with shrunkon aluminium radiator flanges and drove the front wheel via friction directly to the tyre, described at the time by Scott as ‘useless in the wet.’
By 1908 motorcycle purchasing was taking off, the Scott Motorcycle Company had been registered, and its first twin cylinder, water-cooled twin made its debut. This machine included such revolutionary features as a two-speed foot operated gearbox and all chain drive, the final planning and design represented in the culmination of 10 years of development and was completed whilst Alfred Scott lay in bed recovering from a broken leg caused by a fall from his motorcycle.
Alfred was quick to recognise that racing brought the name of the company to the general public and as early as 1909 his works machines took to the racetracks. This was in an era when two-strokes were regarded as having a power advantage over four-strokes, to the degree that the ACU handicapped them by adding a rating factor of 1.25 to their capacity and increasing that to 1.32 if they were water-cooled. Fortunately this was rescinded in 1911 and as a result Scotts won the 1912 Senior TT with Frank Applebee jnr in the saddle and again in 1913 with H O (Tim) Wood at the controls of the yowling strokers.
Both before and after the First World War there were scores of victories for Scott-mounted riders in both one and six-day trials, hill climbs and road racing, but by the mid-1920s the two-strokes had lost their speed advantage over the ever-improving four-strokes and the last TT podium came in 1928, where, in awful weather contributing to lots of retirements, Tommy Hatch finished third in a race won by Charlie Dodson on his Sunbeam. The same rider/machine combination (Dodson/Sunbeam) also won the Senior the following year but out of the six works Scotts entered, only one finished, in 13th place, which did not improve the company’s sales and an official receiver was appointed in 1930.
Although the racing models had not shown the measure of success that was expected of them, they led to the introduction of one of the most beloved of all Scotts in the form of the TT Replica, a bike which was introduced towards the end of the 1928 season, and as the 1929 brochure stated: “Designed essentially for the speed-man and the outcome of years of racing experience.” It went on to say: “The engine has a longer stroke and for power is in advance of any previous
Scott engine.” This longer stroke being 71.4mm for the Replica in comparison to the more prevalent Scott stroke dimension of 68.25mm and the catalogue
“TheTT Replica was designed essentially for the speed-man and the outcome of years of racing experience.”
went on to describe the TT as ‘a replica of the machine finishing third in the 1928 Senior TT race.’ It was on sale to the well-heeled sporting rider at £88 for the 498cc version and £91 for the larger (600cc) model when it was launched in 1929.
Whether EF 4496 (EF being a West Hartlepool area code) was ever raced is now unknown but some letters which came to Andy with the bike unlocks a few doors as to some of its past life. This is one from Mr Alexander to Mr Moore, the latter being the owner of ‘EF’ from August 1949 until November 1950. “I acquired her remains about 1959 or 60 as a result of advertising in Exchange and Mart for two-speeder spares. I had a reply from one T Jones in Kentish Town, NW5, informing me that he had a Scott but he didn’t know what model it was, but the logbook informed him that it was registered in 1930. It was all unassembled and he didn’t have the petrol and oil tanks, radiator, cylinder head and pistons but the carburettor and oil pump had been reconditioned and the gearbox and clutch assembly had only covered 3000 miles from new. Mr Jones went on to inform me that he wasn’t a Scott enthusiast and I could have the whole bike for the same as he got it, which was nothing! On picking it up I persuaded him to take a couple of pounds for it and on examining the logbook there were two names in the form of Ronald Cecil Hughes from Pinner and then James Alexander Stephens from SW1.
“Towards the end of 1966 I saw an advertisement in Exchange and Mart asking for news of EF 4496. I replied and received a letter dated November 16, 1966, from Eric Cliffe together with two photographs of EF ‘as she used to be’ showing an aluminium sprayed frame and the petrol tank purple with a silver lining. It was fitted with alloy guards and stainless steel radiator covers, footchange and front forks were Norton.”
Mr Alexander then went on to inform Mr Moore that since his acquisition of EF he had acquired a tank – rusty but restorable – and had the engine overhauled by George Silk, who also supplied any missing components. Why they were never fitted and the bike not restored is now a mystery but Andy now takes up the story of how the bike came to him in 2007.
“From the day I saw and heard my first Scott back in 1968, with its sonorous exhaust note bouncing back off the walls in Newport Road, I was captivated by the Shipley two-strokes and I’ve now owned three, plus a 1970s Silk 700S. Back in the 1990s I had a workshop in Holt in Wiltshire, opposite one owned by ‘Nobby’ Clark – who was big in the classic scrambling scene at the time – who had a 1925 three-speed Super Squirrel Scott, which I bought from him.
“I’d always fancied a TT Replica and in 1997 my friend Terry Dixon acquired EF 4496 from the long term owner Mr Alexander, who’d sold it to Terry on the understanding he wouldn’t part with it until he (Mr Alexander) died.
“At the time it seemed that his death was imminent so I sold my three-speeder to raise the cash to buy and restore the Replica, but as it transpired the good lord wasn’t finished with him and I had to wait another 10 years before he passed away and I could start the restoration.
“As I subsequently discovered from the letters
“It was a replica of the machine which finished third in the 1928 Senior TT.”
between Mr Moore to Mr Alexander, the engine had been rebuilt by George Silk, so it was like new, but the radiator was shot. Fortunately, the Scott owners’ club – an extremely helpful and knowledgeably bunch of enthusiasts – had a batch of replacement radiators manufactured, and any other spares I needed, like clutch bits and head studs etc were all readily available through them. A new exhaust came from Armours, all of the paintwork was entrusted to Joeby at Wells – who always does a fantastic job – and I also managed to find the correct TT9 carburettor.
“Being such a simple design it didn’t take long to get it finished and with petrol and oil in their respective tanks it started first time on my set of electric rollers. I understand that some Scott owners have changed from the separate oil in the pilgrim pump to a petroil mix, but this involves a lot of hard work and over the years I’ve run all of mine on R40 with the original pilgrim pump with no problems at all.
“With no kick-start fitted cold starts can be a slight problem – the rollers are very handy – but once warmed up it’s easy to fire the twin into life with just a paddle and once it’s out of the 30mph limit and the smoke has cleared, the power delivery is seamless, and it’s difficult to believe you are riding a bike which is over 90 years old.”
Other than a mirror, a horn and a road legal silencer, and the Norton forks, EF 4496 is a near-clone of the bike ridden by Tommy Hatch in the 1928 TT and from any angle the lithe two-stroke looks a thing of beauty. So what’s it like to ride? Thanks to Andy’s very handy starting rollers, I didn’t have to run and bump it into action, and with petrol well primed the twin soon burst into life. Unlike the standard machine which was fitted with a hand change gearbox, EF has been fitted with a Norton ‘Doll’s head’ foot change, and, with first gear engaged, it just took a whiff of throttle to hear me ‘yowling’ away up the road.
Once free of the 30mph limit – keeping it steady here as there is no speedo fitted – I was soon into third gear and was amazed at the almost ‘linear’ power delivery from the water-cooled twin. In the mirror I could see that from cold there was plenty of smoke from the exhaust, but this soon cleared and I was amazed that other than the slightly ‘iffy’ brakes, it was hard to imagine that I was riding a machine that was nine years shy of 100 years old.
By modern standards, the tyres seemed incredibly skinny but they were ideally suited to the lightweight Scott, which stuck to the roads like a limpet and we were soon cornering through the West Wiltshire lanes at a speed comparable to that one could achieve on a modern two-wheeler. The girder forks did an adequate job of soaking up any irregularities in the road surface but with a rigid rear end I did my best to miss the many potholes encountered on our road test.
After stopping for Gary to take the static photographs, it just took a paddle to get the bike fired up again and it was with some reluctance I returned the superb 500cc twin to Andy. There is no doubt it left me with a wide smile on my face and I can say it was the best bike of its era that I have ever ridden.
“From the day I saw and heard my first Scott back in 1968, with its sonorous exhaust note bouncing back off the walls in Newport Road, I was captivated by the Shipley two-strokes.”