Rain drenched the windscreens of the tiny open top sports cars and their gentlemen drivers, turning the 1956 Le Mans 24-hour race into a treacherous battle between man, the elements and their engines.

Legendary driver Stirling Moss was behind the wheel of his racing green Aston Martin DB3S, white helmet bobbing up and down as he peered through the raindrops and tried to focus on the road ahead.

In front of him, however, was not the clear run for the chequered flag that he may have hoped for.

Instead, a metallic blue Jaguar D-type emblazoned with the saltire, took the flag a good lap ahead of Moss and his fellow driver, one of just 14 vehicles out of the 49 which started the gruelling endurance race to come home safely.

It was an astonishing victory that took the racing world by storm and sent the name ‘Ecurie Ecosse’ racing at breakneck speed into the history books.

The road to the remarkable victory – all the more incredible that it would be repeated the following year - had started five years earlier in a quiet cobbled mews in Edinburgh, where an enigmatic motor enthusiast, a team of exceptional mechanics and some of the most talented drivers around, set their plan in action.

Ecurie Ecosse, run on a shoestring budget with none of the financial clout or engineering support of their rivals, would achieve legendary status in British motor sport, a magical name from a golden age when racing required death-defying skill matched only by the sleek curves of the sports cars.

Now, 70 years this year since the Ecurie Ecosse name first emerged, the team’s 1950s Jaguar C-Type racing cars are being ‘reborn’ in the form of seven new continuation cars which hark back to the days when the Scottish team blazed a trail that left rivals standing.

The new Ecurie Ecosse LM-Cs are described as sister cars to the Edinburgh-based team’s seven original chassis which, between 1951 and 1955, earned the team 59 podium places.

Described as “meticulous in their detail” they retain the same racing spirit and lines of the originals that contributed to the team’s roaring success. While, in the true spirit of Ecurie Ecosse co-founder Wilkie Wilkinson make use of new technologies to update and perfect it for the modern world.

Naturally, the head-turning vehicles will also feature the distinctive blue and white paintwork and with hand-airbrushed Ecurie Ecosse shields adorning the car’s flanks.

Current Ecurie Ecosse patron Alasdair McCaig said: “How better to celebrate the historic success of the Ecurie Ecosse C-types than to manufacture a batch of cars in their honour?

“The seven priceless chassis raced in period still exist today, coveted by their lucky owners, occasionally seeing the light of day for race or concours events.

“We are paying homage to these cars by creating a numbered sister car to each one. Meticulous in their detail, like their forebears, hand-built in Coventry and tuned by Ecurie Ecosse technicians.”

Perhaps unlike the originals, the cars will include hand-crafted aluminium bucket seats clothed in supple blue leather, and Tag Heuer ‘Master Time’ stopwatches on the dashboard.

Details of the LM-Cs – with their £430,000, plus VAT, price tags - come just a few months after Ecurie Ecosse launched another Jaguar tribute vehicle bearing its blue and white colours.

Based on Jaguar’s XJ13 which was intended to race in the Le Mans 24 hours race in 1966 only to be shelved and become obsolete, the Ecurie Ecosse LM69 is said to be the team’s imagined version of how the obsolete Jaguar would have looked had it not gone into storage.

Just 25 models are planned, hand-built and road legal, they will set back any new owner an eye-watering £875,000.

That price tag is a far cry from 1951, when Edinburgh businessman and retired racing driver David Murray launched his new racing team with mechanic Wilkie Wilkinson, choosing the name ‘Ecurie Ecosse’ to attract lucrative sponsors who might be less willing to invest in plain ‘Team Scotland’.

Based out of Merchiston Motors, a small backstreet garage in a city centre mews, the pair set about gathering the best mechanics and drivers around.

Racers Ian Stewart, who was responsible for the flag metallic blue livery and Saltire crest, Bill Dobson and Sir James Scott Douglas were prepared to provide their own cars – initially Jaguar XK120s - while Murray managed the team and Wilkie took care of the pre-race preparations.

Having achieved successes in races at Charterhall in the Borders and other UK circuits, the team then switched to the C-type Jaguars – and racked up one podium finish after the next.

But it was the gruelling 24-hours Le Mans race that would see the Ecurie Ecosse name go down in motor racing history, twice defeating the giants of Ferrari, Aston Martin and Jaguar.

The 1955 race had been marred by tragedy when a driver’s car left the road and ploughed into spectators, leaving more than 80 people dead. It meant that the 1956 race would come with additional safety requirements that limited cars to a 2.5-litre engine capacity and required more fuel stops.

The new rules were not the only problem facing teams as they set off for the 1956 race. The grim weather conditions proved too much for many, with dozens of cars eventually crashing off the track and failing to finish the race.

Sharing the wheel were Edinburgh-born Ron Flockhart and his Glaswegian co-driver Ninian Sanderson – a match that was said to be like ‘chalk and cheese’. Sanderson’s easy-going nature and love of a prank were at odds with the dashing Flockhart’s more refined capital city style.

However, on the race track they made a perfect pair, charging to victory at an average speed of 104.47mph and finishing the 2507 miles race with Moss and his Aston Martin team trailing ten miles behind.

The win was followed the following year with Flockhart this time accompanied by Ivor Bueb – who had won the ill-fated 1955 race – and with team mates Sanderson and Jock Lawrence charging behind them in second place.

Not surprising the team attracted drivers who would go on to become racing legends – Jackie Stewart was among the drivers to race in Ecurie Ecosse colours.

Murray reportedly described the 1955 and 1956 winning cars as having been “at the peak of their perfection”. But hitting perfection would prove challenging and the team’s success, sadly, was not to be repeated. Ecurie Ecosse never won Le Mans again. Meanwhile the soaring costs of racing made it increasingly difficult to keep a privately-run team on the tracks. Fearing bankruptcy, Murray left Scotland in 1968 for the Canary Islands, leaving the team to be run by a part-time manager.

It folded in 1971 and just four years later Murray died of a heart attack following a minor road accident.

The name was revived in 1984 by enthusiast Hugh McCaig, who as a schoolboy at Fettes College once wrote to Murray to ask if he would bring the team’s famous Ecosse transporter and cars to the school. Not surprisingly, he was delighted to be granted his wish.

Having taken over as ‘patron’ of the Ecurie Ecosse team, he steered it towards a string of racing successes and included the likes of Dario Franchitti among its drivers.

More recently his son, Alasdair, 37, has been at the helm, both as a driver and director of the Ecurie Ecosse team. There have been successes - Ecurie Ecosse has been on the podium in the Blancpain Endurance Series, British GT and various LMP3 Championships.

But while the launch of new vehicles with Ecurie Ecosse colours may well revive further interest in the team – it seems Le Mans is still the biggest prize.

Launching the LM69, Alasdair said: “There's nothing like it in the world - and it'll be quick. Our long-term goal is take Ecurie Ecosse back to Le Mans."