It's just been announced on BBC radio that John Cooper has died. Apparently he had been suffering from cancer for a while. Another link in the history of Formula 1 gone.

Terrible news. I had written him a month or so ago regarding my Masten Gregory biography and had no idea that he was fighting cancer. I figured that he was doing well since a read an article he had written in Autosport's 50th anniversary issue.[p][smallfont][Edited by Joe Fan on 12-26-2000][/smallfont]

There I was watching It's A Wonderful Life & crying happily at the end again & then I switched on the teletext & brought sadly down to earth;
Shamefully nothing on the motor sport section but on the main news text, there it was, going on about the Mini Cooper but nothing about Formula 1!
His motor racing days were long before my time but although I never had the pleasure to meet him, through interviews & TV appearances, I soon warmed to this big, bluff man.
What he did in motor racing was fantastic:- this isn't the best description I could find of him but it'll do for now;
"They rowed frequently & their characters couldn't be more different, but between them, father & son Charles & John Cooper built the little cars that would revolutionize F1 in the 1950's.
...John was much more easy-going & had a far sightedness that sat ill with his father, leading to frequent disagreements.
Shortly after WW2, the Cooper's began constructing small single-seater cars for the new Formula 3. Since they used chain drive, it made sense to mount the engine at the back, ahead of the rear axle. This endowed the car with excellent roadholding & over the years all manner of future stars cut their teeth in the little Coopers.
The car's were no nonsense designs, reliable & effective & gradually the Coopers evolved F1 versions of the concept. When Moss used one to win the Argentine Gp of 1958; it ushered in a new era; the age of the rear-engined car.
Thanks to the cheap machines manufactured without fanfare in a small dark garage in Surbiton, the hithero dominant continental manufacturers, who had ruled Grand Prix racing, were brought to their knees."

And this brief description of John is just the tip of the iceberg - he is (or was) nothing short of a colossus & this day must go in hand with the death of Ferrari, Chapman, Vandervell etc. How sad to die on Christmas Eve as well & the only crumb of comfort we can take is that he no longer has to suffer from illness.

RIP 'big' John Cooper

Very nicely put, Richie.

I am not going to try to add anything more, you have covered it all so well.

This is first I hear of it. 'tis indeed a sad day.

Richie, I'll have my heirs look you up when it's my time.

I guess that some of the "Lords" cars needed a bit of tweaking from the old carpetbagger.

Safe trip, John. I must take a few laps in my Cooper on GPL.
I'll try not to shunt it.

Maybe Don should do a History or Obitaury on John Cooper for his next column in "rearview"?....for those readers who don't know or know very little about the man.

Hear, hear. Our Scribe would oblige at least my humble personna.

The last of the great inventors of the sport.

John Cooper - a legendary name in the motoring world. Designer of the 1959 and 1960 World Championship winning Cooper Grand Prix racing cars …Designer of the original Mini Cooper and Cooper S …And constructor of the first prototype Honda Formula One Grand Prix racing car.

John Cooper Garages – a Honda dealer since 1986, owned and operated by the John Cooper family - is one of the leading Honda car dealerships in the South of England. We have a team of over 27 people that covers all your new and used car purchasing and servicing requirements. We pride ourselves on our professional yet personal service and the attention to detail that makes the experience of buying a car from us a straight forward and pleasurable one. We supply the complete range of new Hondas with demonstration models always available, including the renowned NSX.

We are the best place for high quality used Hondas, of which we carry a large selection, all meticulously prepared through our service department and all with a comprehensive Honda used car warranty.

http://www.johncooper-honda.com/

Indeed, I will! My first RVM in January will be on the Coopers, John and Charles. It is a sobering realization that only a few of us here actually met John Cooper or saw his creations in their prime.

Few realize the effect that his little company had on GP racing for decades. Indeed, if anyone created the world that Ecclestone changed, it was most the result of what John Cooper did in his shop.

We shall miss him. Godspeed, John Cooper!

I posted this on the RC forum earlier and thought I'd repost here for those who don't read RC. It's a story related by John Cooper. I believe it came from a book about Goodwood but as I got this second hand I don't have the exact source.

"Mike Hawthorn really came to fame at an Easter Monday Goodwood. It was 1952,and we'd just brought out our new Formula 2 car,the Cooper-Bristol. I was racing the prototype,and we'd sold cars to Eric Brandon,Alan Brown,and Bob Chase for his new protege Hawthorn to drive.

All he'd raced before that was a little pre-war Riley in club events;it was his first big race. He never seemed to be taking things seriously;he'd like to go to the pub the night before the race and have a pint and a game of darts.

Well,Mike astonished everyone,including himself,by being fastest in practice on Saturday. In the end I let Fangio drive my car,but none of us could get near Mike; come the Easter Monday he won the F2 race with ease,then he won the Formule Libre race,and finally finished second in the F1 race to Gonzalez's "thin wall" Ferrari. He was a household name from then on,and the offer from Ferrari came five months later.

Soon after that Easter Monday meeting,doing some practice laps,I was going through a corner in my Cooper-Bristol on the limit,as fast as I reckoned I could possibly go. Suddenly Mike in his Cooper-Bristol came round the outside of me,steering with one hand and giving me two fingers with the other. Thats when I decided to give up driving racing cars,and stick to building them."

This tale from Eoin Young’s column in the March 29, 1973 edition of Autocar sums up the late John Cooper for me.

John Cooper, he of Cooper Car Co., Mini-Cooper and victory roll fame when his cars were winning GPs, was down at Brands Hatch watching the modern men at work. I have just bought myself a pair of currently fashionable and extremely effective ear protectors which look like a set of hi-fi headphones (“cans” as they are known to those people sufficiently high on fi) and John was asking what they were. He clapped them over his ears and a look of puzzlement came over his face.

“Can’t hear a bloody thing, boy!”

I pointed out that that was the object of the exercise.

“Might as well stay at home. Next thing they’ll be getting pegs for their noses so they can’t smell the cars either. Wasn’t like this in my day.”

LOL!

That story reminds me of a personal incident. I went to the 1995 Coys Historic Festival at Silverstone. As I was walking through the turnstile, I was handed the usual complimentary race day newspaper and a pair of sponge-rubber ear plugs."What are the ear plugs for?", I asked the girl. "To protect your ears from the noise", she said. "I don't think I'll be needing them", was my reply. "I've come here to listen to the cars as well as look at them".

I must add my voice to those (above) who have expressed their sense of loss on the death of John Cooper. In addition to his remarkable contributions as an innovator in motor sports - I remember him on a personal level as one of the kindest and most likeable people I ever encountered in racing. He just had a wonderful way with people. I think he really liked people and it didn't matter who you were. He always had an encouraging word and gave his full attention. I think it was a key part of his personality and seemed to stem from his essential decency. There was obviously a great deal more to the man but this is how I remember him. He will be missed and never replaced.

Well, I tried to something for his memory. I've posted in RC and TTF (Tribute to Charles Cooper). Of course, I found it more fitting to post an excerpt from 'The Cruel Sport'. Just thought it might interest someone.

I'm not so comfortable following up on my posts, but what the heck... I'l just drop a link that some of you may want to look up: Moss on Cooper.

When talking to Vic Elford the other day he told me of how Colin Crabbe bought the Cooper Maserati for him.
He had been driving the Cooper BRMs, but for the following year Cooper were out of business and Vic was out of F1.
Crabbe was frequently at Cooper's buying bits for old cars he was wheeling and dealing in, and they offered him a complete Cooper Maserati with spares at a price he couldn't (and didn't) refuse.
Just two races later, Vic was told that he was to have a McLaren because "You're too good to be wasted on the Cooper."
He said there was some assistance came with the McLaren.
But that's not what this is all about....

what a great guy, what with Walter Hayes and John Baldwin a sad few weeks

Five years ago today. RIP

Indeed, well spotted... It seems last few years were horrible. I'll drive few laps in old man's memory in my GPL Cooper- an underdog, but with a heart. RIP, John Cooper.

John will be well celebrated at Monterey next August.