Ecurie Ecosse cars sell for £8.8m

Eight cars bearing the legendary Ecurie Ecosse colours have sold at auction for a combined sum of £8.8 million.

The seven racers and transporter - surely the world's coolest race-team truck, no? - were sold in Bonhams' December sale, apparently prompting scenes of jubilation. We can see why.

Ecurie Ecosse, despite being a small race team hailing from Scotland, took back-to-back victories at Le Mans in '56 and '57 in Jaguar D-Types. The team - resurrected in the 80s - later went on to win the '86 C2 class of the World Sportscar Championship, and raced Cavaliers in the BTCC in the early ‘90s.

The sale cars were part of Dick Skipworth's private collection, and included a 1953 C-Type - sold for a cool £2.9m - and 1956 D-Type. Dick himself is a bit of a helmsman too; he's been known to partake in historic races and rallies, and has been a lifelong supporter of the Ecurie team.

Of course, the seven race cars are all very nice and dandy, but the star of the collection was undoubtedly the 1960 Commer TS3 transporter - a car immortalised for a generation thanks to the Corgi toy - that sold to a US buyer for a whopping £1.8 million following a telephone bidding war that lasted for 20 minutes.

Have a click through the pics and pick your favourite. And it's only allowed to be the transporter.

Oh, and fans of Ecurie Ecosse will be pleased to know the newly-resurrected team is planning a 2014 return to Le Mans. Click here for the full story...

Vijay Pattni

This XK120 was campaigned in period by Sir James Scott-Douglas.

Raced in period for Ecurie Ecosse by the team's future Le Mans winner Ninian Sanderson, and also by Jock Lawrence, Jimmy Stewart (late brother of Sir Jackie) and Frank Curtis.

Short-nose D-Type (without the fin) was a debut-race winner for the Scottish team driven by Ron Flockhart.

Campaigned most prominently by Barrie Williams. Also, just look at it!

Former drivers of this car - also campaigned at Le Mans - included Bruce Halford, Tommy Dickson and Sir Jackie Stewart, him of later triple F1 world championship-fame.

Drivers Ninian Sanderson and Bill Mackay took on Le Mans in 1961 in this little thing.

John Tojeiro's ultimate Le Mans 24-Hour race contender: a rear-engined Coupe that was the forerunner of the 1963 Lola-Ford Mark VI GT and the Ford GT family.

Designed by aeronautical engineer Selby Howgate and made famous by Corgi's 1:48-scale toy, this transporter is now in fully restored running order, complete with its Commer TS3 flat-six diesel engine.