Cooper Cars
 |
|
| Full name | Cooper Car Company |
|---|---|
| Base | Surbiton, Surrey, United Kingdom |
| Founder(s) |
Charles Cooper John Cooper |
| Noted drivers |
 Stirling Moss Maurice Trintignant Jack Brabham Bruce McLaren John Surtees Jochen Rindt Pedro Rodríguez
|
| Formula One World Championship career | |
| First entry | 1950 Monaco Grand Prix |
| Races entered | 129 |
| Constructors' Championships |
2 (1959, 1960) |
| Drivers' Championships |
2 (1959, 1960) |
| Race victories | 16 |
| Pole positions | 11 |
| Fastest laps | 14 |
| Final entry | 1969 Monaco Grand Prix |
The Cooper Car Company was founded in December 1947 by Charles Cooper and his son John Cooper. Together with John's boyhood friend, Eric Brandon, they began by building racing cars in Charles's small garage in Surbiton, Surrey, England, in 1946. Through the 1950s and early 1960s they reached motor racing's highest levels as their rear-engined, single-seat cars altered the face of Formula One and the Indianapolis 500, and their Mini Cooper dominated rally racing. Due in part to Cooper's legacy, Britain remains the home of a thriving racing industry, and the Cooper name lives on in the Cooper versions of the Mini production cars that are still built in England, but are now owned and marketed by BMW.
The first cars built by the Coopers were single-seat 500-cc Formula Three racing cars driven by John Cooper and Eric Brandon, and powered by a JAP motorcycle engine. Since materials were in short supply immediately after World War II, the prototypes were constructed by joining two old Fiat Topolino front-ends together. According to John Cooper, the stroke of genius that would make the Coopers an automotive legend—the location of the engine behind the driver—was merely a practical matter at the time. Because the car was powered by a motorcycle engine, they believed it was more convenient to have the engine in the back, driving a chain. In fact there was nothing new about 'mid' engined racing cars but there is no doubt Coopers led the way in popularizing what was to become the dominant arrangement for racing cars.
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Wikipedia