Classic shrine: Jim Clark Motorsport Museum

By James Page

| 19 Apr 2024

Classic & Sports Car – Classic shrine: Jim Clark Motorsport Museum

The Jim Clark Room opened in the small Berwickshire town of Duns in 1969 – just a year after the legendary Scot died in a Formula Two race at Hockenheim – and celebrated his achievements for 50 years before being expanded and updated in 2019.

A glazed structure that serves as the reception area and gift shop now links the original Georgian building to a restored coachhouse, which enables the since-renamed Jim Clark Motorsport Museum to showcase significant cars from throughout his career.

On display when we visited were three very different machines that highlight Clark’s peerless versatility.

After 50 years as the Jim Clark Room, this Scottish museum expanded and became the Jim Clark Motorsport Museum in 2019

Few cars evoke the 1.5-litre era of Formula One better than the Lotus 25, with its revolutionary monocoque design, and chassis R6 was first used by Clark in late 1963.

The following year he took it to victory in the Dutch, Belgian and British Grands Prix, and in 1965 added the French Grand Prix to the tally.

There are plenty of enthusiasts for whom mention of Clark’s name conjures images not of F1 but of a three-wheeling Lotus Cortina, and in 1964 he dominated his class en route to winning the British Saloon Car Championship.

Jim Clark’s 1963 ‘Rookie of the Year’ Indy 500 jacket

The example sitting alongside the Lotus 25 in the museum is JTW 497C, which Clark raced in 1965 as part of a three-strong works outfit.

Completing the line-up is the Jaguar D-type that played such an important role in moving Clark’s career on to the next level during the late 1950s.

Jock McBain was a Ford dealer in nearby Chirnside and the founder of the Border Reivers racing team.

He bought the D-type for the 1958 season and invited Clark to drive it, the youngster admitting that his first experience of the car in a test at Charterhall “scared me to death”.

Jim Clark’s Lotus 25, Lotus Cortina and ex-Border Reivers team Jaguar D-type (left to right)

He soon got the hang of it, though, and at Full Sutton he became the first driver to lap a British circuit in a sports car at an average of more than 100mph.

It also gave Clark his first taste of international racing when he drove it at Spa-Francorchamps against truly frontline opposition, but the experience left him unsettled and led to a lifelong dislike of the ultra-fast Belgian road circuit.

Walking back across the reception area leads you into the main part of the museum, which celebrates Clark’s career from his earliest outings in local events.

The samurai helmet presented to Jim Clark at a United States Auto Club Championship race at Fuji in 1966

His very first trophy – earned as a navigator on the 1955 Hunter Cup Trial – is here, as is a timing board used by the Border Reivers team.

The story moves on to cover his third place at Le Mans in 1960 and his Formula One debut with Lotus, the team for which he would drive throughout his Grand Prix career while forging a close relationship with company founder Colin Chapman.

As the 1960s progressed, Clark established himself as the clear benchmark.

His two F1 World Championship titles of 1963 and ’65 are rightly celebrated, but, pleasingly, plenty of space is also given to his achievements in the Indianapolis 500.

Memorabilia from early competition outings, with an image of Jim Clark as a farmer

Not all Grand Prix drivers were comfortable racing at the Brickyard, but Clark took to it straight away and almost won first time out in 1963.

He finished second behind Parnelli Jones, who many observers felt should have been black-flagged in the closing stages because his car was dropping oil.

Clark made amends by taking victory there in 1965, making him the only man to win the 500 and the F1 World Championship in the same year.

Jim Clark was asked to race this Jaguar D-type by Jock McBain

The museum includes a wealth of Indianapolis memorabilia, including the chequered flag that waved Clark into Victory Lane, the wristwatch and Levi-Strauss clock he was presented with that year, and even his ‘Rookie of the Year’ jacket from 1963.

What the museum does best, however, is reflect the fact that there remains a rare level of affection for Jim Clark the man, on top of the reverence for Jim Clark the driver.

Although he was born in Fife, his family moved to Edington Mains – a few miles east of Duns – when he was a child.

The OBE awarded to Jim Clark in the 1964 Honours List

As the only son he was expected to take over the running of the farm, but although he returned there as often as possible and remained closely involved, he appointed Bill Campbell to look after things on a day-to-day basis as his racing commitments became more time-consuming.

When Clark’s second World Championship was honoured with a local open-top bus parade, he insisted on having Campbell standing alongside him.

‘The Borders were his anchor,’ wrote author Eric Dymock, who came to know Clark well. ‘He loved the region, and the people he was really closest to lived there.’

The Jim Clark Motorsport Museum’s extensive collection of trophies from throughout the Scot’s illustrious career

Many of those people contribute to three short films that can be played on a big screen at the rear of the museum.

Family and friends such as Ian Scott-Watson – who played such an important role in Clark’s early career – share their memories, and there is moving footage from that fateful final race at Hockenheim.

If ever there was a sign of how much motor racing has – thankfully – changed in the intervening decades, it’s the sight of Clark’s teammate Graham Hill and the young Lotus mechanics gathering the wreckage from among the trees at the crash site.

The Levi-Strauss clock was awarded for Jim Clark’s 1965 Indy 500 win, with the event’s chequered flag

There are various interactive screens around the museum that offer further detail and background to various elements of Clark’s life, and one is dedicated to motorsport safety.

The era in which he raced was perilously dangerous, and Clark’s death stripped away one of a driver’s natural defence mechanisms: the thought that it would ‘never happen to me’.

As Chris Amon later reflected, if it could happen to Clark, it could happen to anyone.

In subsequent years Clark’s friend Jackie Stewart led the safety crusade that changed the sport for good.

The watch that Jim Clark won at the 1965 Indianapolis 500 beside a Lotus Cortina miniature

Next to the compact ‘cinema’ area is an incredible display of trophies from throughout Clark’s career.

Previously kept at Edington Mains, these range from those landed on Berwickshire trials and rallies in the mid-1950s through to trophies from F1, Indianapolis and the Tasman Series.

Elsewhere, personal items include Clark’s OBE medal and even the silver-plated ice skate he was given in return for presenting the prizes during the 1964 National Skating Championship in Ayr.

Racing artefacts on display in the museum include magazines, event programmes and trophies

This area of Borders country, tucked away in the south-eastern corner of Scotland, is blessed with some superb driving roads, and the northern approach to Duns along the A6112 is particularly enjoyable.

Clark always remembered seeing a trio of rapidly driven Ecurie Ecosse Jaguar C-types braking hard at the end of a long straight near Kelso, and it’s easy to imagine the youngster honing his skills on these challenging roads.

It’s little wonder, then, that the museum has therefore put together the Jim Clark Trail, a 50-mile route that makes the most of the surrounding countryside and passes some significant landmarks along the way.

Jim Clark’s grave in Chirnside Parish Church cemetery (left); Chirnside’s primary school, which Clark attended

From Duns, it heads to Chirnside, the old home of the Border Reivers racing team.

Clark is buried there in the parish church – a small map at the entrance guides you to his grave – and just beyond the churchyard is the striking Art Deco primary school he attended.

The route continues east, past Edington Mains to Berwick-upon-Tweed.

It then turns back inland, south of the river, to Norham, before heading north to Winfield – site of the old airfield circuit at which Clark competed in the 1950s, and also where he kept his aeroplane when he used to fly home in later years.

‘What the museum does best is reflect the rare level of affection for Jim Clark the man, on top of the reverence for Jim Clark the driver’

From Winfield, the route returns to Duns via Charterhall, another old airfield circuit that has long since been abandoned.

Those who knew Clark best insisted that he would return to the Borders and Edington Mains when he retired from racing.

The shy and modest character would no doubt be bemused by the fact that Duns is now home to a museum in his honour, but it does a superb job of celebrating the man who many still consider to be the greatest racing driver of all time.

Images: James Page

The knowledge

Name Jim Clark Motorsport Museum
Address 44 Newtown Street, Duns TD11 3AU
Where? On the main A6105 in Duns, 15 miles west of Berwick-upon-Tweed
How much? Adults £6, concessions £5.50, children £3
Opening hours Mon-Sat 10am-4:30pm, Sun 11am-3pm (Apr-Oct); Mon-Sun 11am-3pm (Mar and Nov); closed Weds
Tel 01361 883960
Web jcmm.org.uk