Photo of the Cooper T53 by Kogo (2014). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.
Photo of the Cooper T53 by Kogo (2014). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 DE. Wikimedia Commons
Good old days of Formula 1 — Cooper F1 team is part of those stories.
There was a time when the F1 world revolved around huge front-engine cars, their noses long and powerful, their drivers sitting almost atop the rear axle.
Then came a small British F1 team from Surbiton, Surrey, the Cooper Car Company, which dared to do things differently.
What began as a small garage operation would not only challenge the establishment but completely rewrite the technical blueprint of F1.
Cooper: A Revolution from a Small Workshop
Cooper was founded by Charles Cooper and his son John, in 1946, the company started with humble ambitions.
They began making racing cars for the smaller F3 and F2 categories, gaining reputation for clever engineering and simplicity rather than raw power.
But what made them special? At a time when front-engine cars were considered the only way to build a race car, Cooper experimented with mounting the engine behind the driver.
Cooper racing car with the engine at the back, before entering Formula 1:
Photo by TOM at Picasa, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
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The Breakthrough Years
They entered F1 at the Monaco GP in 1950, but by the late 1950s, the Cooper F1 team had earned the respect of the racing world, but few expected what would happen next.
Their cars were light, and handled far better than their heavier front-engine rivals, in 1959.
In 1959, Cooper F1 team build their T51 car with a rear-mounted engine, and Australian driver Jack Brabham used it to win both the Drivers’ World Championship and the Constructors’ title, stunning the Formula 1 establishment.
The Cooper T51 used naturally aspirated 1.5–2.5 liter straight-4 engines from Climax, Maserati, Ferrari, mounted rear-mid and longitudinally. Power went through a manual gearbox, and the lightweight car weighed just 701 kg, making it exceptionally agile on the F1 grid.
A year later, Brabham and Cooper F1 team repeated their success, proving it was no accident. In just two seasons, the small British team had forced the giants of the sport, Ferrari, Maserati, and others, to completely rethink everything they knew about race car design.
However, within a few years, every F1 car on the grid adopted the rear-engine layout, a configuration that remains the foundation of modern F1 design to this day.
After Cooper F1 pioneered the rear-mid engine, layout, it did not take long for the shift to become complete. By 1960, the Italian GP marked the last F1 victory for a front-engined car, driven by Phil Hill in the Ferrari.
From that point, front-mounted engines never won a race, with only a single exception in a non-championship race in 1961.
After Cooper F1 team changed the game with its rear-engine design, Lotus quickly followed for the 1960 season.
Colin Chapman built his own mid-engine car, taking inspiration from Cooper’s idea.
More Than Just Titles
Cooper’s contribution to F1 extended far beyond the trophies, their cars represented a shift in philosophy, racing was no longer just about brute power, but about balance and efficiency.
In total, Cooper F1 team achieved 16 wins in F1 and competed in 129 races, during those years, they worked with some of the sport’s most talented drivers and engineers.
The Decline of a Pioneer
However, the same qualities that had made Cooper great also made them vulnerable, they were a small, family-run team, and as F1 became more professional and expensive through the ’60s, their resources began to fall short.
Rivals like Lotus, under the genius of Colin Chapman, Brabham team, ironically founded by Jack Brabham himself, took Cooper’s rear-engine concept and refined it further.
CONTENT CONTINUES BELOW
Charles Cooper passed away in 1964, without the father-son leadership that had built the company’s identity, Cooper struggled to maintain direction.
Financial Pressures and the End of the Road
By 1965, the cost of competing in F1 had skyrocketed, it was no longer possible for a small team like Cooper at the time to compete at the highest level.
The team was sold, but the new ownership lacked the technical spark that had once defined the outfit.
They continued to race, occasionally scoring solid results that to talented drivers like John Surtees and Jochen Rindt, but the glory days were gone.
By 1969, Cooper withdrew from F1 entirely, marking the end of a pioneering era, the team that had reshaped the sport disappeared from the grid, quietly and without fanfare.
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INFLUENCE of Cooper never faded
Though the Cooper name vanished from F1, its influence never faded, every F1 car that followed owed a debt to the team from Surrey.
The mid-engine concept they introduced became the global standard, not just in F1 but across all forms of top-level motorsport.
Even decades later, the Cooper spirit lingers, in a way small teams still dream of taking on the giants, and even in road cars inspired by the company’s design philosophy.
John Cooper later lent his expertise to Mini, helping turn it into one of Britain’s most iconic performance names.
The Team That Changed Everything
Cooper’s story is one of brilliance and tragedy, they rose from a simple family workshop to the summit of F1, then faded away as the sport grew beyond their reach, but their brief reign left a permanent mark on racing history.
When Jack Brabham crossed the finish line in that little rear-engine Cooper in 1959, he was not just winning a race, he was ushering in a new era.
Cooper did not just compete in F1, they reinvented it!
