September 2019 Classic & Sports Car 187SURBITON’S
SPECIALS
J
ohn Cooper: 35.81 secs. Alec Issigonis:
37.50 secs. It’s 1946, motor racing is
back and Cooper’s home-built (with
his dad, Charles, in Surbiton) special
has taken the 850cc class honours on
the Brighton seafront ahead of a man
who will make him more famous than
would his own world-beating cars.
That special attracted attention and Coopers
soon dominated the 500cc racing class, which
became Formula Three. Stirling Moss was
among the first – with paycheck and to the flag- his engine cheap because his dentist dad ‘did the
teeth’ of JAP’s Stan Greening. At Goodwood’s
inaugural meeting in 1948, Moss dominated so
much he was told to slow by his father.
Formula One met its first Cooper in 1950,
courtesy of Harry Schell, entering the history
books as the first rear-engined car to start a
Grand Prix. Mike Hawthorn scored a Bristol-
powered third place in the British Grand Prix
two years later and claimed strong placings at
Goodwood. This Cooper was more traditional,
the 2-litre horse pulling the Formula Two cart.
Moss and Peter Whitehead entered four 1954
Grands Prix – three for the former, one for the
latter – in a Cooper-Alta Special that was lower,
courtesy of the side-breathing Alta that could
be removed from the spaceframe chassis with
’box attached. But these were lean years – F3 aside.
Jack Brabham landed in Surbiton and a rear-
engined Cooper returned to F1 for the 1955
British Grand Prix. A T39 chassis, usually found
under the ‘Bobtail’ sports car, its Bristol engine
was bored-out to 2.2 litres and bolted to a
Citroën gearbox beneath streamliner bodywork.
Things improved for 1957 when the new T43- albeit an F2 – returned Cooper to the Grand
Prix grid. Two entered at Monaco, one a 1500cc
Coventry Climax, the other enlarged to 2 litres,
and ‘the only driver who was really motor racing
was Brabham’, reckoned Motor Sport. Fourth
became third when Von Trips crashed, but there
would be no fairytale: the Cooper coasted to a
stop, only for a determined Brabham to push the
car home from the seafront a classified sixth.
The breakthrough win came with Rob Walker
Racing in the 1958 F1 opener, when Moss
nursed one set of tyres for the entire Argentine
Grand Prix. Maurice Trintignant proved it to be
no fluke, claiming the following race at Monaco.
Brabham’s wait for victory ended in the Prin-
cipality in ’59 when he took the new 2.5-litre
Climax-engined T51 to his and the works team’s
first win, going on to become champion. Rear-
engined, curve-tubed chassis, fuel tanks flanking
the driver, still with a Citroën ’box, it was a reve-
lation and a revolution drawn on the garage floor.
The Revival will be awash with Coopers,
60 years since they ruled the world
WORDS JACK PHILLIPS PHOTOGRAPHY MOTORSPORT IMAGESStirling Moss leads a pack
of rivals at Goodwood in
1953 in a 500cc Cooper-
Norton MkVIII. He passed
RG Bicknell for second at
Woodcote on the last lap,
but slipped to third