ADO Coupe: the new sports car bringing motor manufacturing back to Scotland

A rock-hard bench to sit on. No windows, no roof, no mirrors, not even a steering wheel and with brakes that were optional, significantly raising the risk should the driver suddenly find themselves heading rapidly downhill.

There was a high chance of breaking your wrist on the tiller and the wire wheels had a rather disturbing habit of buckling on corners, throwing the unfortunate occupants on to the road.

Scotland’s early motor cars may only have reached a less than hair-raising 15mph, but those who dared to climb into the rickety horseless carriage of an Argyll Voiturette were almost certainly in for the ride of their lives.

It was early 1899, and Scots were about to fall deeply in love with the thrills but hopefully not the spills of motoring, in vehicles carefully hand-built using the best of Scottish engineering skill and technology.

Scottish car manufacturing – a stop-start affair at the best of times – ground to an emergency stop in 1981 when the sprawling Linwood car plant, created in the sixties to churn out countless Hillman Imps, finally closed.

Now, a group of Dundee-based motoring enthusiasts is set to relaunch Scottish car manufacturing, with the unveiling of a new sports car designed and built in the city.

The lightweight fibreglass-bodied ADO Coupe takes its retro style from a 1964 design for a sporty model intended to replace the iconic MG Midget but which never made it into production.

Designed as a modern “green machine” with plans for an electric engine and recycled structure – with options to upgrade the engine power for racing enthusiasts – the ADO Coupe is thought to be the first car to be made from scratch in Scotland since production halted at the Linwood site.

The brainchild of car enthusiast Douglas Anderson, designer Richard Oakes and former Jaguar designer Clark Dawson, it will also become the first vehicle manufactured in Dundee.

“I think it is a work of art and pretty sensational,” says Anderson, who dreamed of being a car designer since his youth but was thwarted by a lack of opportunities in the Scottish motor manufacturing sector.

While the price hasn’t been revealed, each ADO Coupe will be built to order – not unlike the early Argyll, Albion and Arrol-Johnston horseless carriages which first introduced Scotland to the convenience, relative “comfort” and ease of motor car travel.

It was, according to Bob James, a guide and research volunteer at Glasgow’s Riverside Museum, a fairly bumpy start and one which, unfortunately for those working in the sector, would struggle to really hit top gear.

“Glasgow was awash with great engineers,” he says. “But Scotland was probably too far away from the main centres for car manufacturing to make much sense

“Eventually we were losing steel works, aluminium works and engineering skills.

“There was the prospect of lorries having to drive 500 miles to deliver components to build a car here and the costs increased to a point where it didn’t make financial sense.”

And yet Scottish car manufacturing had set off at a roaring pace at the dawn of the 20th century when, inspired by the French motor vehicle market, the first all-Scottish cars slowly rolled off the production line.

“Until then, government legislation had protected the toll road owners, the canals and railways which had lobbied strongly saying they couldn’t have cars on the road.

“The French were well ahead of us, and there came a point when the British couldn’t ignore what was happening any longer,” he adds.

The change saw a mini-boom in Scottish car-making, led by the “3As” – Argyll, Arrol-Johnston and Albion, all Glasgow-based manufacturers which brought motorised vehicles to the nation’s streets.

Leading the way was Springburn locomotive engineer George Johnston, and Forth Bridge engineer Sir William Arrol, who had the first British-built motor car ready to hit the road as the century drew to a close.

The Arrol-Johnston six-seater “Dogcart”, a wood-bodied vehicle started by the pull of a rope, rolled off the production line at a factory at Camlachie on a site close to Celtic Park in Glasgow’s east end.

Arrol-Johnston vehicles were eventually found on roads around Britain. However, an unfortunate episode which saw its 1919 Victory model sold to the Prince of Wales only to break down during a royal tour brought unwelcome publicity, and the firm folded in 1927.

Meanwhile, competition had come from rival Albion, formed in 1899 by two former Arrol-Johnston engineers and with production beginning in a first-floor factory in Glasgow’s Finnieston Street. By 1915, however, the business had shifted to Scotstoun to cater for emerging demand for lorries and delivery vehicles.

A more chequered future, meanwhile, awaited Argyll Motors.

Launched in 1898, its Argyll Voiturette was an almost identical copy of a Louis Renault motor car, painstakingly handmade at a former bicycle factory in Hozier Street, Bridgeton.

“It was very basic and looked like a big pram on giant wheels with a very light metal chassis,” adds Bob James.

“The gear box, engine and wheels would be built and then it would be a case of finding a body to fit on it. That meant going to old carriage coachbuilders who would adapt horse-drawn coach and carriages to fit on top of the body.”

The result was a vehicle that occupants didn’t so much sit “in” but sit perched on top of, he adds.

Not surprisingly, there were accidents. “The Western Infirmary archives have descriptions of various injuries inflicted on people who had crashes in their cars,” he continues.

“It was very common for people to get badly hurt or killed when they were ‘ejected’ from their car.

“The wire wheels would buckle if the driver took a corner too hard and the passengers would be flipped out. Another common injury was caused by the tiller.”

Two upright rods which were used to steer, the tiller could easily shift suddenly and snap the unfortunate driver’s wrist.

Argyll Motors’ demise followed the decision to lavish money on the construction of a new factory in Alexandria. “It was a vast, palatial factory where they planned to build the best cars in the world,” he adds.

“They went all-out but while Argyll sold cars in Russia, Japan and Australia, they focused too much on the world market and didn’t look after their money.”

Eventually the expense of constructing the showpiece factory and a shift in demand saw the business stutter and close in 1932.

While other smaller manufacturers sprang up around the central belt, including the Madelvic Motor Carriage Company in Edinburgh – a specialist in electric vehicles, the derelict factory still stands today – none survived.

And it would be decades before vehicle manufacturing on a significant scale returned to Scotland.

The £23 million Rootes factory in Linwood began production of the Hillman Imp in 1963 and employed over 9,000 people at the plant and surrounding suppliers.

However, production of the rear-engine Imp ended in 1976. The factory’s new owners, Peugeot-Citroen, ordered its closure in 1981.

While a handful of kit car businesses exist, the ADO Coupe is thought to be the first Scottish-designed and manufactured vehicle for a generation.

“We are starting small but we have already got a few customers and the first one should be on the road in early summer next year,” adds Anderson. “It is a bit of a dream come true.”

The ADO Coupe is being developed at a workshop on the outskirts of Dundee with various specialist elements of its manufacture to be sub-contracted to local and national suppliers.

Its retro body is based on a 1964 prototype sports car developed by BMC as a possible new style of MG Midget. However, the car, which featured a distinctive sloping back end, was never made.

Prospective buyers of the Dundee-made ADO Coupe will be able to specify certain design elements, including interior, suspension and engine specifications.

The vehicle will be available as a road-going vehicle, or as a shell which can be adapted for the race-track. As well as being supplied ready-built, there are also plans to offer it in kit form for car-lovers to build themselves.

The designers also have plans to explore using recycled materials to create the bodywork, and electric engines.