John Newton Cooper was born on 17 July 1923 in Surbiton, Surrey. He was the son of Charles Cooper, who operated a small garage in Surbiton dedicated to the maintenance of racing cars. Cooper left school at the age of 15 to serve as an apprentice toolmaker. During World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force as an instrument maker. Following the conclusion of the war, John and Charles Cooper began constructing simple, affordable single-seat racing cars for privateer entrants, frequently utilizing surplus military hardware for components.
The success of their early post-war projects led to high demand, and the father and son founded the Cooper Car Company in 1948. The firm’s breakthrough was defined by the decision to place the engine behind the driver. While this became a landmark shift in racing technology, Cooper maintained that the choice was born of convenience rather than a pursuit of a scientific breakthrough. Because the early cars utilized motorcycle engines with chain drives, placing the engine in the rear was considered the most practical engineering solution. The original design for the first rear-engined Cooper was produced by Owen Maddock, a designer at the company.
By the early 1950s, the Cooper Car Company had become the primary starting point for aspiring British racing drivers. The team's Formula One entries were campaigned by prominent figures including Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss, Maurice Trintignant, and Bruce McLaren.
The team reached its competitive zenith between 1959 and 1960. During this period, Jack Brabham secured back-to-back World Championships. The success of the rear-engined Cooper chassis during these years proved the superiority of the layout over the traditional front-engined designs favored by established manufacturers.
In 1959, while attending the United States Grand Prix in Sebring, Florida, Cooper met USAC national champion Rodger Ward. After observing the cornering capabilities of the Cooper chassis, Ward encouraged Cooper to bring a car to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
In the autumn of 1960, Cooper arrived at Indianapolis with a Formula One car for a test session. The local establishment initially viewed the small, rear-engined machine with "amused tolerance." However, during his second warmup lap, Jack Brabham recorded a speed of 144.8 miles per hour, a pace that would have placed him on the third row of the grid for the previous Indianapolis 500. This performance demonstrated that the front-engined "roadsters" then dominant at Indianapolis were obsolete, completing Cooper's revolution of open-wheeled racing.
Cooper’s influence extended to production vehicles through his development of the British Motor Corporation Mini. The resulting Mini Cooper became a successful platform for both professional rally racers and road-going enthusiasts. Later in his life, the Cooper name was licensed to BMW for high-performance versions of the modern MINI. John Cooper and his son, Mike Cooper, served as advisors to the design teams at Rover and BMW during the development of the New MINI.
John Cooper remained the head of his family’s West Sussex garage business, which operated outlets in East Preston and Ferring, until his death. He was the last surviving Formula One team principal from the sport's formative era. In his later years, he expressed the view that the "fun" had departed from professional racing. Cooper died on 24 December 2000 at the age of 77.
Cooper was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of his services to British motorsport. He is credited with helping to establish the United Kingdom’s long-standing dominance in motorsport technology. His life and career are further documented in his autobiography, The Grand Prix Carpetbaggers, published in 1977.