7 replies to this topic

[Porsche718]

Hi all,

I have a question regarding the Bill Morice Cooper Bristol, which should be a Mk 2, and the Jack Malcolm Cooper Holden (ex-Bristol) raced in New Zealand.

I have seen both cars identified as CB-10-52, a number that doesn't gel with production numbers for Mk 1s.

Some records show that Morice had been racing CB-11-53 in the UK before he competed in New Zealand in 1957. I would have thought that this is the car he brought with him to NZ. Some suggestions indicate that the Morice car should be CB-8-53.

Now, for the Malcolm car. Was there a connect with the Morice Cooper Bristol? I have seen it referred to as both a Mk 1 and a Mk 2.

I know that the Cooper Bristol histories are very murky, and that are are a dozen or so more existing than were ever produced, but I am hoping for someone to clarify these two IDs.

Cheers

Steve W

[opplock]

I know that the Cooper Bristol histories are very murky, and that are are a dozen or so more existing than were ever produced, but I am hoping for someone to clarify these two IDs.

Cheers

Steve W

 

I dug out my copy of Vercoe's book. He had CB-11 as being Horace Gould's car, CB10 the Morice car - although "another chassis, unnumbered" may have been the car raced in NZ. CB8 apparently first turned up in NZ in the late 1980s in the hands of Roddy McPherson although that too had a replacement chassis the original being "badly bent but restored" and sold on. 

 

As Brian Lister once said "You've got more Listers on this grid than I ever built". 

 

Good luck.

[Porsche718]

Thanks, Opplock

[cooper997]

Murky and racing car history can be applied to so much. But once a upon a time they didn't care about chassis numbers, because all the drivers wanted to do was race.

 

Paul Emery is the rabbit hole to go looking for the Morice car. As yet, I haven't got Graham Rabagliati's recent Emeryson book to see if there's coverage within. But there might be a few who have and able to check.

 

 

Stephen 

[Porsche718]

Cheers Stephen

[Doug Nye]

My understanding at the time I produced the Cooper Cars book in 1982-83 - forty years ago (really?      !!!) - was that UK-domiciled scrap dealer and former Flt Lt Morice (ex-RNZAF) ran the ex-Horace Gould/Tom Kyffin Cooper-Bristol Mark II.

 

'Orazio' Gould - as Italian commentators called him - was from Bristol in the west of England.  He took his Mark II to the 1954 NZ GP and shipped it back again to the UK, eventually selling it to Tom Kyffin when he bought his Maserati 250F for 1955./. Kyffin's mum was one of the W.D. & H.O. Wills tobacco family.  He told me he later sold his two Coopers to "...an Australian who took them away and left him with half the agreed money...".  I don't think that anecdote was entirely accurate...

 

In 1956 W.F. Morice appeared in the UK racing the Mark II before travelling with Gould to the 1957 NZ GP. At Ardmore he raced a car he recalled to me as having been ex-Kyffin. But Kyffin had two cars - both ostensibly Mark II chassised, which means a tubular near-spaceframe instead of the twin parallel boxed longeron design of the Mark I. The second of his cars had been the Bernie Rodger-modified Cooper ex-Alan Brown which had used an Alfa Romeo engine instead of a Bristol until it was re-engined with a Bristol for Bruce Halford in the UK.  Still with me?  Kyffin found the ex-Gould regular car superior to the ex-Brown special.

 

Is there a photo of Morice in the car he drove at Armore?  It should be immediately identifiable as either the regular Gould Mk II or the special Brown ex-Alfa engined one.  The latter was photographed in its later years with Ross McKay at Washdyke, NZ.

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 16 February 2025 - 07:29.

[Doug Nye]

This from Howden Ganley concerning this topic:

 

 Just read the thread about  the Cooper Bristols.

 

"I went with Jim and George Palmer to Auckland when the

Horace Gould cars which he had sold to George and Phil Neil

were unloaded off the ship ( by crane ) onto the Auckland

wharf.

 

"Two single seaters  Mk 2 for George to race and the other car

then sold to Jack Malcolm.  I seem to recall that the engine was

very unreliable, so Jack fitted a Holden engine.

 

"There was also a Cooper sports car , minus engine.  I think Phil 

sold that on to someone who fitted a Riley engine.

 

"George already had the Mk 1 which he had bought from Jack

Brabham , and then sold on to Gavin Quirk.

 

"The Mk2 was later sold to Len Gilbert who converted it to a sports car."

 

DCN

 

Edited by Doug Nye, 17 February 2025 - 07:48.

[Gary C]

Excellent Doug, from the horse's mouth!
What a great thread.