Cooper Car Company

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The Surbiton Garage That Moved the Engine

Charles and John Cooper's small racing car business put the engine behind the driver and won two world championships doing it.

The Cooper Car Company began in Charles Cooper's garage in Surbiton, Surrey, where he, his son John and John's friend Eric Brandon built small Formula Three cars after the war. The company was formally founded in December 1947. Because those first cars used motorcycle engines driving a chain, it was simply practical to mount the engine behind the driver, and Cooper grew into the first and largest postwar builder of racing cars for private customers.

A Cooper first appeared in a World Championship race at the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix, with Harry Schell. Later in the decade the company took its rear engined layout into Formula One, and Stirling Moss gave Cooper its first championship win at the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix, with Maurice Trintignant winning at Monaco soon after.

The peak came in 1959 and 1960. Jack Brabham won the drivers' title in both years and Cooper took both constructors' championships, with Bruce McLaren also winning races for the team. Brabham won seven of Cooper's 16 championship victories, and within a few years most of the field had followed Cooper in putting the engine behind the driver.

After Charles Cooper died, John sold the team to the Chipstead Motor Group in April 1965 and it moved to Byfleet. With Maserati engines it still won twice more, through John Surtees at the 1966 Mexican Grand Prix and Pedro Rodríguez at the 1967 South African Grand Prix. In 1969 the team failed to find sponsorship for a new car, and its last World Championship race was the 1969 Monaco Grand Prix, after 129 starts. The Cooper name lives on in the Mini.

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