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The Cooper T39, nicknamed the "Bob-Tail", is a successful lightweight, mid-engined, sports car, designed and developed by Owen Maddock at Cooper Cars, for sports car racing in 1955. The car debuted in active racing competition at the Easter race in Thruxton in 1955, being driven by Ivor Bueb, and was later entered into the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans, being driven by John Brown and Edgar Wadsworth, but was unfortunately not classified, because even though the car managed to complete 207 laps around the 8.4-mile Le Mans circuit, it didn't manage to finish within 70% of the winners' race distance. However, between 1956 and 1962, it did manage to rack up and tally an incredible streak of domination and competitiveness, scoring 91 total wins and clinching 236 podiums finishes; an incredible record. It was powered by the 1,098 cc (67.0 cu in) Coventry-Climax four-cylinder engine. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
Shortly after the end of the Second World War, the British racing car designer Charles Cooper and his son John began building racing cars. The Cooper Car Company initially developed small single-seater cars with the Junior and 3 racing formulas. Small sports cars were added later.
One of these developments was the T39 "Bobtail" from 1955. The vehicle concept had a lot in common with the monopolists, such as a lattice frame, 15-inch wheels, drum brakes, and wheels that were individually suspended on wishbones and transverse leaf springs. However, the engine was not arranged in front, but behind the driver in front of the rear axle. The first engine came from Coventry Climax, a 1.1-liter, the 4-cylinder in-line engine that was also used in the Lotus Eleven. Over the years, Cooper also used other engines in different chassis, for example, an engine from Volvo, boxer engines from Porsche, the 1.5-liter Coventry Climax FWB, and a 2-liter Bristol.
The Cooper T39 had a streamlined body made of aluminum. Cooper tried to keep the weight of the car as low as possible through extreme lightweight construction. Some cars were later rebuilt. The American racing driver Pete Lovely converted his T39 into a monoposto-like car with covered wheels.
Cooper's own route into Formula One was somewhat unorthodox. Following on from producing the Vanwall Maddock began work on a new sportscar, designed around Coventry Climax's new FWA 1,098 cc inline-four engine. Maddock and John Cooper decided to adapt the Mark IX Formula Three chassis to accept the larger, more powerful engine, retaining the engine mounted behind the driver and the driver's seat on the car's centre-line, per the single-seaters arrangement. The T39 chassis consequently featured Cooper's curved tube design, with the upper longerons sweeping up from the front suspension mounts, passing on either side of the driving position and engine, before looping back down the rear suspension. The passenger seat, mandated by sportscar rules of the time, was mounted outboard of the chassis on the driver's left.
The car gained its nickname from Maddock's unusual bodywork design. While the front of the car was relatively conventional, the rear featured an abbreviated, Kamm tail design. Maddock had been studying the theories of Professor Wunibald Kamm and decided to implement such an arrangement on the new car. Although the Kamm theory gained far wider application in the 1960s, in the mid-1950s the styling resulting from Professor Kamm's work was striking. The chopped-off look of the car's tail gained the new T39 sportscar the nicknames "Manx" and "bob-tail". John Cooper was, however, somewhat skeptical of the new silhouette, and regularly explained away its lack of tail by telling enquirers that "we had to cut it off because it wouldn't fit in the transporter otherwise". [12]
In addition to being a highly competitive racing car, the Cooper Bob-tail was to form the basis for Cooper's first true attempt to enter the World Championship in their own right. Jack Brabham had gained a strong reputation as a racer in his native Australia driving a lightly modified Cooper Bristol which he branded the RedeX Special. On moving to the UK he picked up where he had left off, driving a Cooper-Alta in domestic British series. Brabham's visits to the Cooper works to collect spares led to collaboration with the Cooper outfit, and subsequently, wholesale integration with the Cooper works team. Eventually, he persuaded the Coopers to allow him to create a Formula One version of the T39 chassis around a 2-litre Bristol engine. Brabham, working almost alone on the car, completed the Formula One special the day before its first race: the 1955 British Grand Prix at Aintree Circuit. Although the car's engine failed on this first outing, subsequent development proved that the rear-engined Cooper was competitive with the Formula One machinery of the day, ultimately winning the 1955 Australian Grand Prix, and paved the way for the Cooper works to develop a proper slipper-bodied challenger.
Over the years, T39s have been registered at 343 racing events, and 613 individual uses are known. 82 overall and 40 class wins were achieved.
For the first time, a T39 was entered at the Easter race in Thruxton in 1955. At the wheel of the works car sat Ivor Bueb, who finished the race behind Les Leston and Kenneth McAlpine (both on a Connaught AL / SR ) in third place. Bueb also clinched the first victory; he won a race at Brands Hatch two weeks later.
In the 1950s, different teams entered the model, primarily in national British sports car races, but also in World Sports Car Championship races. 1956 occupied Leech Cracraft and Red Byron in the 12-hour race at Sebring 21 overall and won the class for sports cars to 1.1 liters. In the 1956 Reims 12-hour race, Stirling Moss and Graham Hill drove a factory T39 but retired. At the 1956 24 Hours of Le Mans, Ed Hugus and John Bentley were eighth in the final ranking. T39s were used successfully until the mid-1960s.
Sir John Arthur Brabham was an Australian racing driver who was Formula One World Champion in 1959, 1960, and 1966. He was a founder of the Brabham racing team and race car constructor that bore his name.
The Cooper Car Company is a British car manufacturer 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 mid-engined, single-seat cars competed in both Formula One and the Indianapolis 500, and their Mini Cooper dominated rally racing. The Cooper name lives on in the Cooper versions of the Mini production cars that are built in England, but is now owned and marketed by BMW.
Formula Two is a type of open-wheel formula racing category first codified in 1948. It was replaced in 1985 by Formula 3000, but revived by the FIA from 2009–2012 in the form of the FIA Formula Two Championship. The name returned again in 2017 when the former GP2 Series became known as the FIA Formula 2 Championship.
Coventry Climax was a British forklift truck, fire pump, racing, and other speciality engine manufacturer.
The 1957 Monaco Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 19 May 1957 at Monaco. It was race 2 of 8 in the 1957 World Championship of Drivers.
Ian Ewart Raby was a British racing driver from England. He participated in 7 World Championship Formula One Grands Prix, debuting on 20 July 1963 in the British Grand Prix, where he retired on Lap 60. He scored no championship points. He was a garage-owner in Brighton, Sussex trading as Empire Cars Ltd. As a privateer he came to Formula One late in life.
The 1956 24 Hours of Le Mans was a race for Sports Cars which took place on 28 and 29 July 1956 on the Circuit de la Sarthe. The race was won by Ron Flockhart and Ninian Sanderson driving a Jaguar D-Type for the new Ecurie Ecosse team. This race also marked the golden jubilee of the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) founded in 1906, however because of the previous year's disaster, celebrations were deferred to 1957 to go along with the imminent 25th anniversary of the race.
The 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 23rd 24 Hours of Le Mans and took place on 11 and 12 June 1955 on Circuit de la Sarthe. It was also the fourth round of the F.I.A. World Sports Car Championship. During the race, a crash killed driver Pierre Levegh and 83 spectators while injuring 120 others in the deadliest accident in motor racing history.
Écurie Écosse was a motor racing team from Edinburgh, Scotland. The team was founded in November 1951 by Edinburgh businessman and racing driver David Murray and mechanic Wilkie Wilkinson. Its most notable achievement was winning the 1956 and the 1957 24 Hours of Le Mans. The team also raced in three Formula One races. Ecurie Ecosse's cars were always distinctive in their flag blue metallic paint.
The Cooper T51 was a Formula One and Formula Two racing car designed by Owen Maddock and built by the Cooper Car Company for the 1959 Formula One season. The T51 earned a significant place in motor racing history when Jack Brabham drove the car to become the first driver to win the World Championship of Drivers with an engine mounted behind them, in 1959. The T51 was raced in several configurations by various entrants until 1963 and in all no less than 38 drivers were entered to drive T51s in Grand Prix races.
The Aston Martin DBR4/250, commonly referred to simply as the DBR4, is a Formula One racing car, designed by Ted Cutting for the sports car manufacturer Aston Martin. Following notable successes in sports car racing during the mid- to late-1950s — culminating in winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race and the World Sportscar Championship title in 1959 — the DBR4 was intended to repeat this success in the highest tier of open-wheel racing.
The Rennmax name was applied to a series of open wheel racing cars and sports racing cars constructed by Rennmax Engineering in Sydney, Australia between 1962 and 1978. Rennmax Engineering was established by Bob Britton in 1961, its name derived from the German word "Renn", meaning race and the abbreviation "max", for maximum.
The Brabham BT3 is a Formula One racing car. It was the first Formula One design to be produced by Motor Racing Developments for the Brabham Racing Organisation, and debuted at the 1962 German Grand Prix. The Brabham BT3 was the vehicle with which team owner – then two-time World Champion – Jack Brabham, became the first driver ever to score World Championship points in a car bearing his own name, at the 1962 United States Grand Prix. The following year Brabham also became the first driver ever to win a Formula One race at the wheel of an eponymous car, again driving the BT3, at the 1963 Solitude Grand Prix. The BT3 design was modified only slightly to form the Tasman Series-specification Brabham BT4 cars.
John Crosthwaite was an English race car designer and engineer, active in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
Owen Richard Maddock was a British engineer and racing car designer, who was chief designer for the Cooper Car Company between 1950 and 1963. During this time Maddock designed a string of successful racing cars, including the Formula One World Championship-winning Cooper T51 and T53 models.
The BRM P48 was a Formula One racing car raced in 1960. It was BRM's first rear-engined car. With rear-engined cars in the ascendancy, BRM hastily reworked the front-engined, now five-year-old P25. The car proved to be slow and unreliable, and was replaced by the P48/57 the following year.
The Ferrari 330 TRI/LM Spyder is a unique racing sports car purpose-built in 1962 by Ferrari to achieve victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It was the last Ferrari racing sports car with a front-mounted engine and the last of a series of Ferrari race cars known as the Testa Rossas. The "I" in its designation indicates that the car has an independent rear suspension.
The Cooper T54 is a rear-engined open-wheel race car chassis, designed, developed, and built by Cooper, for U.S.A.C. Indy car racing, between 1961 and 1963. It was powered by a 250 hp (190 kW) 2.75 L (168 cu in) Coventry Climax FPF four-cylinder, but later used an Aston Martin six-cylinder engine, installed by automotive mechanic and engineer Joe Huffaker, after the car had been by Jim Kimberly to Kjell Qvale. After competing in IndyCar racing, it competed in a variety of different motorsports, including sprint car racing, where it was powered by larger Ford, Buick, and Chevrolet V8 engines.
The Lola Mk1 is the first sports racing car made by Lola, under the leadership and guidance of Eric Broadley, in 1958. The body was designed and developed by chief stylist Maurice Gomm, made out of a steel or fiberglass tubular spaceframe chassis, covered in a low-profile, sleek, aluminum skin. The 80 hp (60 kW), 1,098 cc (67.0 cu in), Coventry Climax FWA four-cylinder engine was designed by Harry Mundy and Walter Hassan. The car used a 4-speed manual transmission, and was lightweight, weighing in at a mere 812–840 lb (368–381 kg). It also notably won its class at the 1960 12 Hours of Sebring, being driven by Charles Vögele and Peter Ashdown. At least 32 cars were known to have been built, but the actual number is believed to be between 38 and 42.
The Cooper T49 , also known as the Cooper Monaco T49, or the Cooper T49 Monaco, is a lightweight sports racing car, designed, developed and built by the British manufacturer Cooper, in 1959. It was manufactured as the successor to the Cooper T39. It competed in motor racing between 1959 and 1966, and was extremely successful, as well as being very competitive. It won 89 races, scored 136 podium finishes, and clinched 11 pole positions. It was powered by a Coventry Climax four-cylinder engine of varying displacements; those being 1,098 cc (67.0 cu in), 1,450 cc (88 cu in), and 2,000 cc (120 cu in).