English gentleman: the Ascari Ecosse

In the United Kingdom, there are several small car companies that make exotic cars. One of the most notable people in the British exotic scene is Lee Noble, creator of Noble Automotive, a legit line of supercars that give Ferrari and Lamborghini a run for their money. But before he created his own line of high performance Britons - Noble's M12, M400 and brand new M600 - he designed this: the Ascari Ecosse. The Ecosse began life in 1995, showing at different car shows in the UK. It was then called the F-GT, but they later renamed it the Ecosse, which is the French exonym for Scotland. In 1998, it was put into production. The Ecosse used a 4.7 liter V8 sourced from Ford, and the Ecosse's narrow, finesse shape kept its weight down to 2756 lb. The performance figures were impressive for its time, top speed was 201 mph and the 0-60 time was only 4.1 seconds, making it comparable to the Ferrari 550 Maranello. The Ecosse's design screams 1990's, and it has gone down as a rare and forgotten supercar, as only 17 were made. Ascari has now moved onto the KZ1 and A10 under the direction of Klaas Zwart and Paul Brown.

British exotics being my favorite, I think they are underrepresented in 1:18 scale. This Ascari Ecosse would be a great addition to my collection that already has such supercars from England as the Lotus Esprit V8, McLaren F1 and Jaguar XJ220.