Charles Cooper and John Cooper, along with John's boyhood friend Eric Brandon, began building racing cars in Charles's garage in Surbiton, Surrey, England, in 1946. Their initial creations were single-seat 500-cc Formula Three racing cars, powered by JAP motorcycle engines. Due to post-World War II material shortages, early prototypes were constructed by joining two old Fiat Topolino front-ends. The decision to place the engine behind the driver, a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout, was initially a practical one, as the motorcycle engine's gearbox drove a chain, making a rear placement more convenient. This design, while not entirely new, was popularized by Cooper.
The Cooper 500 quickly found success in hillclimbs and on track, including Eric Brandon winning the 500 race at Gransden Lodge Airfield. This success generated demand from other drivers, including Stirling Moss, Peter Collins, Jim Russell, Ivor Bueb, Ken Tyrrell, and Bernie Ecclestone, leading to the establishment of the Cooper Car Company. The company became the world's first and largest postwar specialist manufacturer of racing cars for privateers, building up to 300 single- and twin-cylinder cars during the 1940s and 1950s. Cooper dominated the F3 category, winning 64 of 78 major races between 1951 and 1954.
Cooper had its first taste of top-tier racing with a modified Cooper 500 chassis, the T12 model, when Harry Schell qualified for the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix. Although Schell retired on the first lap, this marked the first appearance of a rear-engined racer at a Grand Prix event since WWII. In 1952, the front-engined Formula Two Cooper Bristol model was introduced, driven by notable figures like Juan Manuel Fangio) and Mike Hawthorn, further enhancing the company's reputation in Grand Prix races run to F2 regulations. The company began building rear-engined sports cars, known as "Bobtails," in 1955, powered by modified Coventry Climax fire-pump engines. These cars demonstrated improved handling due to their central gravity, leading Cooper to develop a single-seater version for Formula 2 races.
A rear-mid-engined car, the Bugatti Type 251, appeared at the 1956 French Grand Prix but was uncompetitive. The Cooper T43, with its 2-litre Formula 1 variant of the Climax FPF engine, attempted to qualify for the 1957 Monaco Grand Prix. Jack Brabham, driving a T43, qualified second to last but raised eyebrows by running third towards the end of the race before a fuel pump failure on the 100th lap. He pushed his car over the finish line, taking sixth place. Later that year, in the 1957 German Grand Prix, 1500cc Formula Two cars were allowed to participate, and six Cooper-Climax cars, including Brabham’s, competed.
The first F1 win for a rear-engined car occurred at the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix. Stirling Moss, driving Rob Walker's privately entered Cooper-Climax, took advantage of a shortened race and the expectation that all teams would stop for a tire change. Moss, in the nimble Cooper T43, did not pit, ultimately winning the race ahead of the Ferraris. At the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix, three new Cooper T45s qualified in the Top 5, and Maurice Trintignant's victory stunned the racing world, signaling the start of a rear-engined revolution.
In 1959, Jack Brabham and the Cooper works team became the first to win the Formula One World Championship in a rear-engined car, a feat they repeated in 1960. Every F1 World Champion since 1958 has driven a car with the engine in the back. Owen Maddock, known as 'The Beard' by his workmates, was the designer behind the revolutionary Cooper chassis. Maddock recounted sketching a frame with bent tubes as a joke, which Charles Cooper unexpectedly approved. Maddock later pioneered one of the first honeycomb monocoque stressed skin composite chassis designs and helped develop Cooper's C5S racing gearbox.
Brabham took a championship-winning Cooper T53 "Lowline" to Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1960 for testing, then entered the Indianapolis 500 in 1961 with a larger, longer, and offset Type T54. Initially mocked by other teams, the "funny" little car finished ninth, running as high as third. This marked the beginning of the end for front-engined roadsters at Indianapolis, with Jim Clark winning in a rear-engined Lotus in 1965, and every subsequent winner having a rear-engined car.
As other manufacturers adopted mid-engined designs, Cooper's practical and intelligent construction was surpassed by more sophisticated technology from Lola, Lotus, BRM, and Ferrari. Changing engine regulations, from 1500cc in 1961 to 3000cc in 1966, also presented challenges. The team's decline was accelerated by John Cooper's serious injury in a road accident in 1963 and Charles Cooper's death in 1964.
Following his father's death, John Cooper sold the Cooper Formula One team to the Chipstead Motor Group in April 1965. The team relocated from Surbiton to a new factory unit in Byfleet. For the 1966 3-litre formula, Cooper, whose new owners held the Maserati concession for the UK, built the Cooper-Maserati car, the T81 chassis. Three cars were sold to private owners: to Rob Walker for Jo Siffert, to Jo Bonnier’s Anglo Swiss Racing Team, and to French privateer Guy Ligier.
With Bruce McLaren leaving to form his own team, Cooper signed Richie Ginther, who was temporarily available from Honda. Ginther was later recalled by Honda, and after a one-off arrangement with Chris Amon, John Surtees joined the team after a dispute with Ferrari. With Surtees' development skills and a switch to Firestone tires, the car improved, and Surtees won the final race of the year in Mexico.
Surtees moved to Honda for 1967, and Pedro Rodríguez joined Jochen Rindt. Rodríguez immediately won the opening race of 1967 in South Africa in a Cooper one-two, a fortuitous victory as he was being outpaced by John Love in an older Tasman Cooper. This was Cooper's last Grand Prix victory. The team's fortunes declined throughout 1967, and the lighter T86 chassis failed to improve performance. Rindt, frustrated with his contract, deliberately blew up his Maserati engine in the US Grand Prix and was fired before the season finale.
For 1968, Cooper opted for BRM's 3-litre V-12 engine, building a modified T86 chassis, dubbed T86B. Italian driver Ludovico Scarfiotti and Englishman Brian Redman were employed. The cars achieved three-four finishes in Spain and Monaco, partly due to competitor unreliability. However, Scarfiotti was killed in a Porsche at the Rossfeld hill climb, and Redman suffered a serious accident in the Belgian Grand Prix. Cooper continued the season with various drivers, but the T86B was outclassed. A project for a T86C chassis with an Alfa Romeo 3-litre V-8 was stillborn.
The Cooper Car Company began its decline in 1969, failing to secure sponsorship for a new Cosworth DFV-powered car, leading to redundancies. Frank Boyles, in charge of building customer cars, was the last to leave. He went on to design and build the Oscar Formula Ford car and Fireball Oval Circuit cars, winning over 200 races in a rear-engined version of the latter by 1975.
As Cooper's Formula One fortunes waned, the John Cooper-conceived Mini, introduced in 1961, continued to thrive. This development of Alec Issigonis's British Motor Corporation Mini featured a more powerful engine, new brakes, and a distinctive livery. It dominated saloon car and rally races throughout the 1960s, winning numerous championships and the Monte Carlo Rally in 1964, 1965, and 1967. The Cooper name lives on in various Cooper-marked versions of the Mini and conversion kits. The current BMW MINI, in production since 2001, offers Cooper and Cooper S models, along with John Cooper Works tuner packages.
Beyond Formula One, Cooper offered a series of Formula Junior cars, including the T52, T56, T59, and T67 models. Ken Tyrrell ran a successful team with John Love and Tony Maggs as drivers in this category. Following the end of Formula Junior, Ken Tyrrell tested Jackie Stewart in a Formula Three car, a Cooper T72, at Goodwood Circuit, marking the beginning of a significant partnership in motorsport.
John Cooper retired to the Sussex coast, where in 1971, he founded a garage business in Ferring, near Worthing, selling Mini Cooper engine-tuning kits and performance parts. This garage was later sold to Honda in 1986 and moved to East Preston to convert Mini Coopers into race cars. In October 2009, Mike Cooper, John Cooper's son, launched Cooper Bikes, the bicycle division of the Cooper Car Company.
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