The game changers

17th October 2019

Dismissed by Enzo Ferrari as mere “garagistes”, the Cooper Car Company nevertheless had a lasting influence on motorsport and racing-car design. We trace the rise and fall of the Surbiton-based business born out of a passion for hillclimbing.

Words by Peter Hall

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A “make do and mend” mentality was one of the few resources freely available in post-war Britain, so in June 1946, when motorsport enthusiasts John Cooper and Eric Brandon decided to get into hillclimbing – that is, racing cars up hills – they used whatever they could find. With John’s father Charles, owner of Cooper’s garage in Hollyfield Road, Surbiton, they set about building a lightweight machine using the front suspension assemblies from two scrap Fiat Topolinos bolted to each end of a simple ladder chassis and a 500cc JAP motorcycle engine mounted behind the driver, allowing chain drive to the rear axle. Five weeks later, John drove the car at Prescott Hillclimb, little realising that he was kick-starting a motorsport revolution.

Despite numerous teething troubles – the engine mountings had to be reinforced with agricultural plough handles – the miniature racer showed promise. The mid-engined layout was purely pragmatic, but concentrating the weight between the front and rear wheels also gave the car excellent balance. So many enthusiasts wanted one that in 1947 the Cooper Car Company was founded. It would soon become the world's largest specialist builder of racing cars. The founders hired engineer Owen “The Beard” Maddock, coincidentally the son of the architect who designed the Surbiton factory, whose lateral thinking and draughtsmanship were increasingly valued as technical drawings replaced sketches on the walls.

Track-testing a Cooper Bristol 2-litre car at Goodwood in 1953

Track-testing a Cooper Bristol 2-litre car at Goodwood in 1953

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Cooper supplied cars for the likes of Stirling Moss, Peter Collins, Ken Tyrrell and Bernie Ecclestone, and dominated the new 500cc F3 category. One even qualified for the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix. For 1952, it produced a front-engined F2 car that gave Mike Hawthorn two wins and a second place at Goodwood’s Easter Monday meeting and fourth at the Belgian GP, but the advantages of putting the engine behind the driver were fully realised in 1955 with the Coventry Climax-powered “Bobtail” sports car. Like the 500, it offered superior handling, so a single-seater version was built for F2. A few eyebrows were raised when Cooper works driver Jack Brabham took this T43 to sixth place at the 1957 Monaco GP (pushing it over the line after running out of fuel) but when Moss and Maurice Trintignant used similar cars to win the 1958 Argentine and Monaco GPs, the racing world sat up and took notice.

In 1959, Cooper asked Climax to supply a 2.5-litre engine for F1 and Moss drove the resulting T51 to its first victory in the Glover Trophy at Goodwood. Brabham went on to win the F1 World Championship (despite again having to push his car over the line at Sebring) and repeated the feat in 1960. As midengined machines were clearly lighter, nimbler and more aerodynamic, Cooper’s revolution was unstoppable; Enzo Ferrari disparaged them as mere “garagistes” but teams such as Lotus and BRM refined Cooper’s approach and established a British technical dominance in F1 that persists to this day.

As the competition intensified, Cooper’s fortunes declined and there were further setbacks when John was badly injured in 1963 and when Charles died in 1964. The F1 team was sold in 1965, struggling on until 1969, while the factory was leased to the Metropolitan Police in 1968 (it is now a Porsche dealership).

However, there was another legacy. Following the 1959 launch of the Alec Issigonis-designed Mini, John Cooper had conceived a competition version with a bigger engine and disc brakes, and persuaded not only BMC but his friend Issigonis to develop it. The Mini Cooper and Cooper S appeared in 1961 and 1964 respectively and enjoyed decades of success in motorsport, also carving a cultural niche for themselves in the 1969 film The Italian Job . Today, 60 years since they distinguished the works F1 cars from all the other British Racing Green machines on the grid, Cooper’s twin bonnet stripes are still a common sight – in Surbiton and beyond – on BMW’s re-imagined MINI.

This article was taken from the Autumn 2019 edition of the Goodwood Magazine.

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