More from the Topps World on Wheels bubblegum card collection. This time, Cooper-Bristol.
From the card’s reverse:
This is the most successful British racing car built since the end of World War II. It is called the “Cooper-Bristol” because a Bristol-made engine is put into the Cooper-made chassis. The six cylinder overhead valve engines give them lap speeds of 100 mph range. These cars took part in almost every major competition in their class, and always have a very good account of themselves.
Here’s something we can all get behind. Gary Snider last raced “Old Red” 30 years ago. Now, this lovely Mini is moving under her own power for the first time since. I’m so glad when these kinds of videos found they’re way online. There’s nothing like seeing a racing machine take her first ginger steps; like a newborn deer hinting at the mighty stag she’ll become. Looks to my eye like she’ll be ready to run with the rest of the VSCR next season.
I adore the use of leaf springs in the Cooper Mk IV. When the FIA settled on a 500cc specification for the new International Formula 3 series they made a lot of motorcycle engine manufacturers and British garagistas very happy.
This iteration of the Cooper 500 has long been my favorite. It looks like a WWII fighter plane fuselage on wheels. It is small. it is nimble. It is utilitarian. It is—dare I say—cute. My friend Eric is always mocking me for my love of ‘cute’ cars, but I make no apologies. I’d rather race this humble little insect of a machine than most meaner, more muscular, more intimidating racers.
More of the absolutely stunning Guerry & Prat studio shots at their gallery page. More info on the Mark IV and the 500cc Formula at 500Race.org.
More footage from the John McClure archives, this time from the August 56 running of the Paramount Ranch road races. The footage here is nice and close, it seems John staked out the perfect spot for the featured Sunday races.
The under-1500cc consolation and feature races in the first half of the video has some great shots of Richie Ginther absolutely walking away with the feature race in his #211 Porsche 550 Spyder; the aftermath of Rex Huddleston’s crash in his #75 Maserati-powered Lotus; William Binney’s beautiful #359 Doretti; an interesting shot in the pits of someone’s front-engined(!) Porsche 4-cam powered racer (is it a Lotus 11?). Nice to see some Cooper Formula IIIs mixing it up with the road cars and specials in the low displacement race.
In the larger displacement race, there’s some nice shots of the lovely little battle between Eric Hauser, Bill Krause, and Harrison Evans. Each of them took 1st in their classes piloting their #70 Morgensen Special, #27 Jaguar D-Type, and #130 Ferrari Monza 750.
Seeing the track in use really highlights was an absolutely beautiful location Paramount Ranch was, even moreso than when we featured it in our Lost Tracks series.
I have long held a firm belief that you can only paint your car red if it’s from Italy: Corvettes in red? No. Porsches? Ew. Ferrari? Maserati? Bandini? Now we’re talking. Red just always screams “trying too hard” to me. But for some reason, and I don’t know if it’s the sexy Italian bodylines or just being used to seeing red Ferraris, but once you’ve decided to go all out on an Italian machine, the red just works.
This Cooper-Monaco, though, has me thinking that it must be the slinky curves and not the country of origin that does the trick. Because this little racer has more beautiful curves than it knows what to do with and looks marvelous in red. I love everything about this 1959 Cooper-Monaco. The Cooper team simply took its game-changing Formula 1 car and widened her to accommodate a passenger, wrapped the frame in this marvelous aluminum skin, and called it a day. In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about “race track technology for the road”, but it so often falls flat or, worse yet, was more a function of the marketing department than the engineering team.
That is not to say, of course, that this little beauty was a simple road car (although this was still the era when you drove your racecar to the track, knocked out a quick win, and drove her home). She’s a full-blooded racer with the pedigree to prove it. This example, Chassis CM.5.59, at the hands of Colin Davis, won her debut at the 1959 Grand Prix Messina. Sadly for this example, it was all downhill from there. She claimed a 5th place at the 1960 GP Cuba (again with Colin Davis piloting), and DNFed at the 1960 Targa Florio.
Thankfully, though, this was not the true end for this marvelous little racing car, and today the car offers some excellent perks for the vintage racer. Race engineer Carroll Smith (of Engineer to Win fame) converted the car, in period, to coil-over suspension. Later owner, Porsche IMSA racing champion, Bob Akin, converted the powerplant from her original Maserati 200SI to a Coventry-Climax/Hewland drivetrain.
Today, CM.5.59 is ready to race and available from Connecticut restoration specialists and dealer, Automotive Restorations, Inc, coupled with their vintage racing preparation service, it’s one-stop shopping for one amazing summer racing season. She’s a fantastic little racer and I can certainly think of worse ways to spend $225,000. More details on the dealer’s info sheet.
Thanks to the mighty Hemmings Blog for pointing this beauty out.
The Circuit Bugatti was quite unpopular at the time, but it looks lovely in this footage. It’s also fantastic to see open-wheel cars in the LeMans pits.
The BARC Boys have a wonderful gallery of their members and others in action at the 1959 Nationals from July 4th weekend, 1959. Briggs Cunningham in particular seems to have been a busy man that weekend, gridding his Lister Jaguar and the OSCA in which he took 2nd place for the G & H Modified class.
There’s a lot to love about this series of photos. Many Maseratis, Porsche 550s, an Aston Martin DBR-2, OSCAs were popular that year. But the handful of photos of the motorcycle-powered 500cc Cooper single seaters really do it for me. Just look at this photo of Lex DuPont leaning hard into a turn in his. Sadly they’re terribly uncompetitive in today’s vintage racing monoposto classes, but these little Coopers are pure racing delight to my eyes. I love the backyard ingenuity, wonderful lines, and repurposing of motorcycle engines in these little beauties. I’m definitely going to have to write more about these little cycle-powered racers in the future.
