AUTOSPORT HISTORICS 25 JULY 2019 23STAR CARS
Charles and John Cooper’s first attempt to
harness Jaguar’s rorty 3.4-litre straight-
six XK engine, introduced in 1948, for
sportscar racing came in the tubeframe-
chassised T33 with all-independent
suspension and disc brakes. Three emerged
from their Surbiton works in 1954, for
Peter Whitehead, Bertie Bradnack and Jack
Walton. The prototype was sleekly clothed
initially but they all ultimately raced with
curious pared-down bodies that exposed
the driver in low-cut cockpits.
The subsequent T38 model incorporated
many lessons learned by the 500cc
Formula 3 kings, who had produced
two-litre Cooper-Bristols in single-seater
and cycle-winged sportscar guises in some
numbers by that stage. The newcomer’sThe Super Touring era of the 1990s
almost has a precedent. In 1960, season
three of the British Racing and Sports Car
Club’s British Saloon Car Championship
was, uniquely, open to cars meeting ‘Supa
Tura Trophy’ regulations – highly
modified one-litre machines with
standard silhouettes – racing within
a broader spectrum powered by larger
engines. The winner was Cambridge GP
George ‘Doc’ Shepherd, whose much-
lightened grey Austin A40 was developed
and tuned by local sorcerer Don Moore
with engine guru Harry Weslake.
Runner-up to Jeff Uren driving John
Willment’s 2.5-litre Ford Zephyr as a class
winner in 1959, Shepherd bagged Supa
Tura gold in six of 1960’s eight rounds,
including three of Brands Hatch’s four.
He rolled in the finale there, advantaging
eventual runner-up John Young
(SuperSpeed Ford Anglia). Snetterton
hosted two counters, both manna to
Shepherd on home soil. The medic also
won at Mallory Park and Silverstone’s
non-championship British GP support
race. Racing shoemaker Edward Lewis
(A40) scored at Oulton Park en route
to third in the points.
Shepherd kept the registration number
UCE 13 but his all-conquering A40 was
sold, resprayed anonymous red and
converted for road use by a work colleague
of Trevor Parfitt’s who then switched jobs.
A pal of Parfitt’s acquired it in August
1967, whereupon its hidden secret
was revealed. Having met ‘the Doc’ at
Cambridge Car Club events, Parfitt had to
own it! After hooning on the road for threeyears he mothballed the famous racer.
Fast-forward more than 45 years and
Parfitt – cousin of Status Quo’s late
vocalist/guitarist Rick, now running
specialist race and rally preparation
business Scott Automotive in Suffolk
with son Simon – decided to restore
the car and return it to the tracks for
last year’s BTCC 60th anniversary
celebrations. British GT champion
Rick Parfitt Jr may race the car – of
which a scale model is popular with
collectors – in selected events.1955 COOPER-JAGUAR T38
CURRENT OWNER FREDERIC WAKEMAN
1959
AUSTIN A40
‘UCE 13’
CURRENT OWNER
TREVOR PARFITT
running gear was clothed in a pleasantly
curvaceous body, with the uprated engine
now carried further back. Again three were
built, Whitehead’s British Racing Green
example joined in 1955 by wealthy young
Hampshireman Tommy Sopwith’s dark
blue example and, in 1956, a white one for
Captain Michael Head (father of Patrick),
which superseded his Jaguar C-type.
Ambitiously, Sopwith – son of aviation
baron and Americas Cup yacht racer Sir
Tom – intended initially to power his T38
with a Turbomeca gas-turbine unit, but
repeated delays meant he took the proven
Jaguar option for his Equipe Endeavour
entry. Having cut his teeth in an XK120,
shared Noddy Coombs’s Cooper-Bristol
T25 in the 1953 Goodwood Nine Hours,
and moved on to the unique Sphinx-Allard,
Sopwith won two minor Goodwood races
in the T38 before putting Reg Parnell in
it and changing his racing focus.
Sopwith’s Cooper-Jaguar, road
registered YPK 400, was sold to David
Shale, then rapid Peter Mould, but has
achieved far more in historic racing
than in its contemporary career. Owned
long-term by Californian Fred Wakeman,
the machine has won several Royal
Automobile Club Woodcote Trophy races
in recent years, co-driven by preparer
Patrick Blakeney-Edwards.JEPJEP