Notes:
William Archibald Scott Brown, or “Archie” Scott Brown as this very fast driver was known not only to his many friends but to motor racing enthusiasts everywhere, was an object-lesson to those in adversity, for although physically he was far from 100 per cent, very few racing drivers could compete with him. He was a tiny and brave man from Scotland who overcame enormous disabilities, to race with great success mainly in Lister-Jaguar sportscars. He was severely disabled from birth, possessed only the left hand and foreshortened legs, he stood only five feet tall (some one and a half meter).

Archie Scott Brown always refused to let this hamper him in his ambition of becoming a first-rank driver in motorsport. He was quite short and in the same way he was as fast as anyone in the “Le Mans” sprint start, although his disabilities precluded any other form of athletics. Other competitors protested his entry on safety grounds and his racing license was summarily withdrawn until, on appeal, it was restored two months later. The diminutive but irrepressible moustachioed Scot even contested Formula 1 races, making one Grand Prix start at Silverstone in 1956, at the wheel of a Connaught B-type.

He was born with disproportionately short legs, badly deformed feet and only one fully-formed hand. He underwent 22 reconstruction operations in an effort to repair and add as much function as possible to his limbs, possibly the disabilities were caused by the effects of his mother's German measles during pregnancy. His father Bill Brown, owner of an Alvis dealership, had raced an Alvis at Brooklands and other circuits in pre-war era. Archie Scott Brown worked as a salesman in East Anglia to raise funds, making his racing debut at the age of 22, at the wheel of a MG TD. He rested his weak arm on the wheel with a delicate grip when gear-changing. His greatest problem was to get every year a licence as racing driver, and even with it, often his entries were rejected by the organizers.

Starting with an MG in sprints at the age of 21, in the early years of the 1950s he achieved numerous victories in club and national sportscar races, forming with his firm friend Brian Lister, one of British motor racing’s most celebrated partnerships in history. Lister managed his family's Lister Engineering company in Cambridge, enlisting the considerable talent of Don Moore as racing engineer, manufacturing sportscars bearing the family name. In 1954 Lister built a 2-litre Lister-Bristol in which Scott Brown won his class, finishing fifth overall in the British Grand Prix Meeting at Silverstone, behind the works Aston Martin DB3S of Peter Collins, Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby and Reg Parnell's Lagonda V12. The following year Scott Brown won the British Empire Trophy at Oulton Park in the Lister-Bristol, and in 1956 Lister, Moore and Scott Brown moved to the new Formula 2 category, using the Coventry-Climax engines adopted by rivals such as Lotus and Cooper. But this was pretty a disaster, the team entered only the 1956 International Gold Cup at Oulton Park.

In 1956 Archie Scott Brown made also his Formula 1 debut, driving a Connaught B-Type – Alta, to a fine second place in the non-championship International Trophy at Silverstone, one lap behind the winner Stirling Moss in a Vanwall. On 14 July of the same year he was at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. He set an excellent qualification time in his Connaught #19, the best of the Connaughts, starting in 10th place, four seconds from Moss’ Maserati 250F who had won the pole position, but in front of several works drivers such as Alfonso Portago, Jean Behra and Jack Brabham. However, Archie Scott Brown did not finish the race, when he lost a wheel on 17th lap. Later in the season he entered the Italian Grand Prix in the Connaught but officials at Monza banned him from Formula 1 because of his handicap and he did not start.

Lister was not the first manufacturer to use Jaguar power in a sportscar, after Cooper, HWM and Tojeiro to name but a few. When Lister presented in 1957 the powerful Lister-Jaguar sportscar, better known as "Knobbly", Scott Brown became nearly unbeatable. The 1957 racing season proved to be the most successful when on the 14 races for which he was entered Scott Brown won 11, including the British Empire Trophy at Oulton Park, finished second in one, and had minor mechanical trouble in the other two when in the lead, being only Roy Salvadori able to pip him with an Aston Martin opened out to 3.7-litre. In every single race he equalled or broke the lap record. At Goodwood in September he led a field that included the likes of Salvadori, Jack Brabham and Henry Taylor, leading from flag to flag and winning by over half a minute.

Scott Brown scored also an eighth place overall in the Rabelöf 6 Hours (Swedish Grand Prix) at Kristianstad, then a round of the 1957 World Sportscar Championship, sharing the Ecurie Ecosse’s Jaguar D-type with John Lawrence. Thanks to these prestigious results and his courageous driving style, Archie Scott Brown had the opportunity to race the works BRM Type 25 Formula 1 car in the British Grand Prix at Aintree but, after a brake problem in testing he declined the offer.

He raced as co-driver to Jack Sears in the Rallye de Monte-Carlo, in January of 1956, with Kenneth Best as third driver. They did not finish the gruelling event, sharing an Austin A50, fitted with a well-tuned MG Magnette engine and sporting the race number #99. Archie Scott Brown deputised for Peter Reece of Liverpool, Sears' co-driver in the original entry list, who was killed while testing the car, just two months before the rally.

By the end of 1957 he was greatly frustrated by his severe handicap to gain an international licence, which stopped him competing abroad. He obtained a permission to race in New Zealand early in 1958, winning the Lady Wigram Trophy at Christchurch, and the Teretonga International Trophy at Invercargill. Then he participated in the 12 Hours of Sebring, sharing his Lister-Jaguar with Walt Hansgen, but the duo did not finish the race because the engine of the car caught fire in the bend before the boxes, in the early stages and the car was hit by Olivier Gendebien's Ferrari. The Lister-Jaguar was completely destroyed, being Scott Brown unhurt.

Back home in the UK, Scott Brown was sixth in a Formula 1 non-championship race, the Glover Trophy at Goodwood driving a Connaught, then he continued to dominate the sportscar scene in his Lister-Jaguar until a short-sighted driver from Kansas, Masten Gregory who raced in spectacles, proved his equal at the wheel of another Lister-Jaguar entered by Ecurie Ecosse. Later the rivalry with Gregory tragically claimed Scott Brown's life, when they were duelling furiously at Spa-Francorchamps.

The second edition of the Grand Prix de l'Automobilclub de Francorchamps was held on Sunday, 18 May 1958, during the year of the "Exposition Universelle de Bruxelles". The event consisted of three trials, first for touring-cars, then GT cars and at long last the sportscar race, the clou of the meeting. Amongst the participating guests, well known names followed the Lister-Jaguars of Gregory and Scott Brown, at his first start on the tough Belgian track, including Paul Frère and Carroll Shelby in two Aston Martin DBR2 factory cars, Ivor Bueb and Jack Fairman in the Ecurie Ecosse's Jaguar D-types, Olivier Gendebien in an experimental Ferrari 312S loaned to the Belgian National Team for testing in view of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Right from the start, Gregory gained over Scott Brown and the Aston Martins. In spite of intermittent drizzle, the Source hairpin displayed a dry tarmac as the cars passed for the fifth time. Gregory and Scott Brown rushed in the downward slope towards Eau Rouge side by side, but while coming back from Stavelot the rain arrived, unexpectedly. The two cars ran closely the Blanchimont straight and at the exit of Martinfange, Scott Brown suddenly swerved off the road on a piece of damp track, hit the pole of a signpost and skidded into a green bank. The car dropped into a ditch and rolled over at Club House, just before the Source hairpin, only 200 meters from the pached stands. He was ejected from the car and the Lister-Jaguar's bodywork made of magnesium alloy, caught fire immediately, grazing a trackside memorial to the British driver Richard Seaman, who lost his life in that same place in 1939.

Jim Clark who was an eyewitness of the accident, being at his international debut in that race, driving a white Jaguar D-type for team Border Reivers, said it happened due to the sudden rainstorm which caused Scott Brown’s car to skid more than usual. He lost control of the car when it put a wheel off the track on the right side. It is believed he might have survived if it had not been for the resulting fire. Gregory won the race, from the Aston Martins of Frère and Shelby. Archie Scott Brown was first taken at the circuit's infirmary and then transferred to hospital in Heusy, neighborhood to Verviers, near Liège in Wallonië region, Belgium, where he died the following day without regaining consciousness, with his parents by his side. He was 31 years old.

Inevitably the course of Lister history changed after Archie Scott Brown's death. Drivers as eminent as Clark or Moss would continue to succeed in Cambridge cars, but Brian Lister was rather detached after the fatal accident. He turned his back on the sport at the height of his success, when his friend was gone. In July of 1959 Lister Engineering announced its withdrawal from all forms of racing.

Despite different accounts report his name as Archie Scott-Brown, his complete name was William Archibald Scott Brown, no hyphen between Scott and Brown, Scott being given name and Brown the surname. In 2007 an Archie Scott Brown memorial was unveiled by his old friends Lister and Sears at Snetterton. The plaque states:
“Archie Scott Brown represented everything that was best in the sport”.

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