Scottish Aviation Scamp

The Scottish Aviation Scamp is a small concept electric city car that was designed between 1964 and 1966 by Scottish Aviation. The name was chosen as a contraction of SCottish (from Scottish Aviation) and AMP (for electric current).
Concept.
The Scamp was developed by the Project Department of Scottish Aviation as a small, two-seater urban commuter vehicle. The department had been thinking about electric vehicles and were inspired by the battery-powered tugs used to move baggage trucks at Prestwick Airport. These were plugged into charger in the basement of the airport terminal in between jobs. It was considered sensible that an electric car could be re-charged where it would be expected to park, ie at the owner's home, with a re-charge time of 8 hours overnight considered reasonable. The head of the department, Gordon Watson was at the railway station in his home town when a commuter train was due in, He observed wives waiting in cars in the car park to take their husbands on the short journey home. He realised the husbands would benefit from having their own car dedicated to the 'station run', for which a small, cheap vehicle would be ideal, with performance, comfort and a wide range of uses not being important for such a specific short purpose. This led to Scottish Aviation's concept of an electric car. It would be the second car in a household. It would probably be used by only one member of that household to undertake, probably on a daily basis, a specific, known journey or pattern of journeys, after which it would be at home and could be completely recharged overnight from a standard 13 amp domestic socket. A few quick calculations showed that the electricity cost would be better than per gallon. The specification that emerged was:
As a result it was clear that if the 8 hour re-charging requirement could produce a reliable range of , Scottish Aviation should concentrate on making the car cheap and not on increasing the range or performance.
Development.
The original design study was followed in early 1965 by the construction of a test vehicle. It was originally not much more than a seat on a chassis and became known as "the farm cart" in the factory. This vehicle demonstrated that the theoretical calculations in the design study were correct. It was capable of a top speed of and an acceleration of 0- in 10.5 seconds. In simulated urban conditions of six stops and starts per mile (1.6 km), it achieved a range of between charges, against an original target of . With a constant throttle setting, the range increased to .
In late July 1965 Scottish Aviation approached the Central Electricity Generating Board as a result of being happy with the progress that was being made. The aim was to aimed at market the Scamp through the area electricity boards' regional showrooms. This approach was followed by visits to Scottish Aviation at Prestwick by senior personnel from the Electricity Council and the South West Electricity Board, who were sufficiently impressed to equip "the farm cart" with a wooden, light metal alloy and Perspex body and register it for use on the road as DAG 908C. This would allow it to be demonstrated at the Bristol headquarters of the SWEB, and in London. The tour finished with a press conference about electric cars at which the Scamp was driven by Stirling Moss. This generated almost 200 enquiries from prospective customers and distributors around the world.
Encouraged by this reception, Scottish Aviation manufactured a batch of 12 pre-production Scamps to be used for further development and market studies. The first of these left Prestwick at the end of February 1967 to be the centrepiece of the Electricity Council stand at the Ideal Home Exhibition.
Testing and Cancellation.
Scottish Aviation had not set out to revolutionise the motor industry, but had produced an unconventional car which was evaluated against conventional standards. The Electricity Council submitted two vehicles to the Motor Industry Research Association for testing. Car 13A 0004 was evaluated in 1967, and the following year car 13A 0003 was given an endurance test.
The evaluation of the Scamp in 1967 noted the following:
"During the examination and use of this vehicle, several features that justify a brief mention became noticeable. Although it was not intended to make an exhaustive criticism of the design of the vehicle, a few of the points that arose were considered to be of interest.
"The 0.62 inch diameter knobs used internally for latches and covers were inconvenient and flimsy. The demister slots were crude and quite inadequate for the size of windscreen. The total space provided for luggage, shopping, oddments etc, seemed to be the two open boxes flanking the rear battery. The cover for this battery was inadequately located. The hole to which it gave access provided for topping up the cells but was just too small for access to the terminals. The door providing access to the charging socket was so small that making the connection properly was difficult. The spring loading of this door had weakened considerably after a few charging periods. When the charger was connected, there was no interlock to prevent the vehicle being driven away with the connection still in place. It was not easy to tell from within the car whether the control was positioned for Forward, Off or Reverse and it was therefore easy to leave it parked in any one of these three positions. The drive chains and sprockets were usually unprotected from loose stones and weather effects, the chains were showing signs of wear after only . The rear battery retaining strap and bolts were already modified for assembly reasons, but were replaced by more suitable items when they proved to be unsatisfactory. One road wheel was replaced by the spare when it cracked after of running; it was felt that a standard wheel could have been bought to suit this application. One electric motor failure occurred with accelerating away from a standstill and another similar failure occurred during the first attempt to carry out a brake fade test - again when trying to obtain maximum acceleration from rest.
"The opportunity was taken during the test period to drive the car over a variety of different road surface. On all but the smoothest of surfaces, considerable pitching movements occurred at all road speeds, becoming more noticeable at speeds above … steering properties were adequate on dry, smooth surfaced roads. In wet conditions, the ride was unchanged and the handling within the limited vehicle performance remained acceptable; however the shortcomings of the steering system made it possible for a slide to be initiated and it was difficult to regain control.
"When normal road hazards were encountered, both ride and handling deteriorated sharply and the lack of adequate suspension damping at the front was made obvious. Pot-holes, raised or sunken drain covers, broken road edges, lateral ridges and railway level crossings all gave rise to crashing noises from the suspension while the occupants were unseated and the vehicle was, all too often, deflected from its chosen path. Negotiation of bends with adverse cambers revealed a tendency to travel straight on. On a bend with a corrugated surface, the vehicle hopped towards the outside of the bend and considerable internal noise was generated. It should be added that these hazards were negotiated at - . the maximum speed available, whereas experience has shown that most vehicles can achieve at least before attracting serious adverse comment and can be driven faster still."
The endurance test report, produced on 1 October 1968, noted the following faults at the stated distances on the test track:
The testing by MIRA Ltd. damaged the suspension and there were other issues with the vehicle. Scottish Aviation asked to examine the problems and propose modification. However, the Electricity Council replied that the scamp was "unfit for purpose" and that the council was no longer interested in the project, were returning the vehicles and requested a meeting with the Commercial Department of Scottish Aviation in order to nullify the contract.
One of the other problems with the Scamp was caused by issues with the battery. Lucas Industries configured several sets of special development batteries, but the life of these proved to be limited to around 12 months, rather than the planned 18 months, before they could not longer be re-charged and had to be replaced. Lucas were confident they could develop a battery with the required life, but this would have cost more than the available resources for the project. Scottish Aviation terminated work on the Scamp project in 1968, but did seek interest from other companies to continue it, with interest from Reliant Motors and Rootes Group. Two of the pre-production vehicles were bought by battery manufacturers in England and Finland and two more were used by the Progress Department of Scottish Aviation and by Scottish Express at Prestwick Airport.
Survivors.
Of the 13 vehicles built (1 prototype, 12 pre-production), only 5 are believed to survive: