Description
National Motorcycle Museum | Solihull, West Midlands Viewing: Tues 27th October from 1pm Auction: Wed 28th October from 10am Location: National Motorcycle Museum, Coventry Road, Bickenhill, Solihull B92 0EJ Registration No: OOX 206Frame No: EX2MOT: Exempt Historically significant 500cc Scott, identified within its extensive archive as Prototype No. 2 Period photographs and contemporary press coverage document OOX 206 with M. D. ‘Matt’ Holder Offered with an extensive historical archive and V5C The story of OOX 206 begins during one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of the Scott marque. Following the financial difficulties that afflicted Scott in the post-war period, the company’s manufacturing rights and equipment were acquired by Aerco Jigs and Tools Ltd of Birmingham, headed by committed Scott enthusiast M. D. ‘Matt’ Holder. Holder and his team subsequently embarked upon an ambitious programme to develop a new generation of Scotts suitable for the post-war era. The resulting development machines represented a considerable departure from the traditional Shipley-built Scott. Whilst retaining the marque’s famous water-cooled two-stroke twin-cylinder engine and distinctive engineering character, the prototypes employed a more modern chassis layout incorporating a duplex frame and swinging-arm rear suspension. OOX 206, carrying the highly appropriate frame number EX2, emerged from this experimental programme and is identified within the substantial accompanying archive as Prototype No. 2. Importantly, this identification is supported by both contemporary material and several decades of subsequent research. OOX 206 appears in period Scott Motor Cycle Co. photography bearing the St Mary’s Row, Birmingham address, whilst contemporary motorcycle press coverage records the development programme as it unfolded. Of particular significance is the 22nd July 1954 issue of The Motor Cycle. Its feature, ‘Scott Marches On’, examined the new Birmingham Scott project and illustrated Matt Holder aboard OOX 206 alongside journalist Kevin Gover riding another prototype, POC 493. OOX 206 can therefore be placed directly within the Aerco development programme through contemporary published evidence rather than solely through later recollection. The surviving archive provides considerably more than a single magazine cutting. Period and later photographs, Scott Owners’ Club correspondence and detailed research document efforts by marque enthusiasts and previous custodians to establish the histories and constructional differences of the experimental machines and the Birmingham Scotts that eventually entered limited production. Historical Scott technical material records OOX 206 as ‘Brum prototype number two (1954)’ and notes a number of features distinguishing it from subsequent production motorcycles. These include its Shipley-type front end, Dowty forks, Lucas headlamp mounted on tubular stays, duplex front brake and Shipley rear wheel, together with differences in the construction of the prototype frame. These details underline OOX 206’s importance not simply as an early Birmingham Scott, but as a genuine development motorcycle representing an evolutionary stage between the traditional Shipley machine and the Birmingham Scotts that followed. The motorcycle’s significance continued to be recognised long after its experimental career had ended. By 1988, OOX 206 was sufficiently well known within Scott circles for its registration and prototype status to be specifically recorded in Scott Owners’ Club material. Correspondence dating from the 1990s demonstrates continued investigation into the machine and its fellow prototypes, including examination of period photographs, frame construction and differences between development and production Scotts. Perhaps the most evocative later chapter came in September 1995, when OOX 206 was photographed on the Isle of Man alongside XUA 277, identified within the accompanying archive as the No. 1 production Birmingham Scott. The surviving photographs are annotated ‘Prototype & No. 1 Production M/ C together in I. O. M. Sept ’95’, bringing together two machines representing successive stages of Matt Holder’s attempt to revive Scott production some four decades earlier. The importance of OOX 206 therefore extends considerably beyond its rarity. It represents a surviving component of the engineering programme through which Holder and Aerco sought to preserve and modernise one of Britain’s most individualistic motorcycle marques. Its history encompasses the Aerco works, Matt Holder, contemporary motorcycle journalism, experimental development and decades of subsequent research by Scott enthusiasts. Few motorcycles from the post-war Scott story can be accompanied by such a substantial body of material connecting an individual surviving machine with the development programme from which it emerged. OOX 206 is offered with a V5C and an...
