McLaren - and the Cooper connection, Part One

Much of the early success of Bruce McLaren is due to the genius of John Cooper, the genial Englishman who ran the Cooper Car Company with so much achievement in the 1950s and 1960s. Indeed, it was Cooper who provided the springboard which would launch Bruce on a winning career that culminated in the formation of his own Formula 1 team.

When John Cooper died last Christmas at the age of 77 another link with the past was severed. He was an arch enthusiast who, together with his father Charles, changed the shape of Formula 1 Grand Prix racing by showing how competitive a rear-engined single seater could be. Of course there had been rear-engined GP cars before, but it was the Cooper team which put the stake firmly in the ground. Coopers began the rear-engine revolution.

Bruce McLaren first went to Europe as a budding youngster in 1958. Even though he was just 20, he had an accumulation of five years motor sport competition in several types of cars including two ex-Jack Brabham "works" Coopers. He came to Britain as the first Driver to Europe candidate in the New Zealand International Grand Prix Association sponsorship and it was the Cooper team which gave the Aucklander a helping hand up into European racing.
In that first year McLaren finished second in the Formula 2 Championship, won the F2 class in the German GP at the Nurburgring, was second at Casablanca and third at Silverstone and Montlhery. 1959 saw Bruce's first foray into Formula 1 with the Cooper team and he began with a fifth at Monaco and Reims, a third in the British GP at Aintree and a surprise last-minute victory in the American Grand Prix at Sebring when Jack Brabham's Cooper spluttered to a halt with no fuel just yards from the finish.

When the1960 season opened in Argentina the following February, McLaren kept up his winning form by crossing the line first in hot conditions. He finished second at Monte Carlo and Spa, third in the French GP at Reims, fourth in the British GP and second in the Portuguese GP to place second in the World Driver's Championship behind team mate Jack Brabham. No bad for a lad who only turned 23 half way through the season. Those two years had been dream seasons for the young McLaren, with much of the credit due to the Cooper Car Company in Suburton.

Although John Cooper is best known in his role as team manager and as the man who provided the inspiration for the famous Mini Cooper and Mini Cooper S, he took part in many races early in the 1950s. The first little Cooper 500 snarled up a British hillclimb in July 1946 and it was this car which set Coopers on their road to success. The Autocar magazine of the day described the Cooper 500 as an "ingenious half-litre racing car, bult at low cost with excellent results".
When Coopers launched the Formula 2 front-engined Cooper-Bristol in 1952 it was a far cry from the diminutive rear-engined Cooper 500 with which the marque had earnt an early but enviable reputation. While the Cooper-Bristol proved extraordinarily successful, the late Charles Cooper always hoped the model would be the first British car to win a World Championship Formula 1 Grande Epreuve race since Sir Henry Segrave's Spanish Grand Prix victory in a Sunbeam in 1924. That honour would have to wait until the Argentine Grand Prix in January 1958 when Stirling Moss took the underrated 2-litre Cooper Climax to a surprise victory.

The Cooper-Bristol was designed and built around the well tried BMW-based, Bristol modified 2-litre engine. This 6-cylinder, 1,971cc power unit produced 127 bhp at 5800 rpm and used three Solex 32 BI down-draught carburettors which gave the car a top speed of 220 km/h (137 mph). It was 3352mm (11 foot) long, weighed 495 kg and used a four-speed Borg and Beck gearbox modified by Bristol. Lockheed drum brakes were fitted all round, while the primitive suspension comprised transverse leaf and wishbones at the front and a transverse leaf and leaf wishbone set-up at the rear, following the style of Cooper's smaller Formula 3 500 car. Fifteen inch cast alloy bolt-on wheels were used and the steering was rack and pinion.

The engine was tall and heavy which made it impossible to design a car with a low bonnet line unless the engine was angled but the slightly awkward styling had a Ferrari look. A light frame comprised main side-members of drilled box-section with a tubular super-structure running parallel to and above the channel-section members. Hoop-shaped members provided additional rigidity behind the radiator, in front of the scuttle and to the rear of the driver's seat. Fuel capacity of 110 litres was stored in a tail-mounted tank and smaller tanks either side of the frame.

Coopers initially built three cars, two for the Ecurie Richmond team drivers Alan Brown and Eric Brandon while the third was purchased by Bob Chase for an up and coming 23-year-old Mike Hawthorn. The car's debut at the Goodwood Easter Monday could not have been more spectacular. Against strong opposition that included Fangio and Gonzales, the Cooper-Bristol won every race in which it appeared at that meeting apart from being beaten by a 4.5 litre Ferrari in the Formula 1 race. Cooper-Bristols finished 1-2-3 in the Lavant Cup, took out the Chichester Cup and made winner Hawthorn, complete with bow tie, an overnight star. Fangio drove Brown's car in the second race but only finished sixth after carburation trouble.

Hawthorn went on to win a Formule Libre race at Charterhall and then victory in the Sussex Trophy at Goodwood. He was second to Taruffi's Thin Wall Special in the Ulster Trophy and a remarkable fourth in the Belgian GP at Spa despite being 40 bhp down on the Ferraris and Maseratis. No fewer than five Cooper-Bristols ran in the 1952 British GP at Silverstone, with Hawthorn finishing third. Mike went on to win the Daily Mail international race at Boreham in August, and was fourth in the Dutch GP after making the front row of the grid.

(To be continued....)

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