28 replies to this topic

[Jerry Entin]

The Bob-tail Cooper was introduced in England in 1955. It was mostly raced with the 1,100cc Climax engine, although Connaught and Bristol units were used as well. Jack Brabham won the 1956 Australian GP with a Bristol engined Bob-tail Cooper. The single seater was allowed in SCCA racing, but not the USAC Road Racing Championship, which adhered to more recent FIA regulations.
all research Willem Oosthoek- photo Richard Macon collection

[Jerry Entin]

These two Bob-tails were owned by SCCA amateur racers Bob Dusinberre #61 and Jim Fritz #63. Bob Dusinberre was from New York, Jim Fritz was from Indiana, but both lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida when these photos were taken in 1959. Bob was in the real estate business and Jim was a sportscar salesman.
Bob Dusinberre won the first race for GM and HM cars at the new Daytona Speedway with his Bob-tail, in September 1959.
all research Willem Oosthoek- photo lent site Richard Macon collection

[Ray Bell]

Lovely photos, Jerry...

I like the background to these photos too, the Caddy wagons and so on. I hope you're also enjoying the pics on the Aussie photos thread!

[T54]

Jerry, those are my favorite Coopers... some day I will have one.

[thomaskomm]

Thank you for the great photos! Interesting cars, with their famous BMW 328 engines (devirates) or little climax engines. Jack Brabham had the bristol engine in his bristol-cooper heavily modified. The engines were prewar, but competitive until the fifties.

Thomas

[Jerry Entin]

Here is a side view of the Jim Fritz car.
Ray I have seen the Australian site and did enjoy it very much. I am glad you are enjoying these great pictures that Richard Macon has lent the site.
T54: I think if you ever make a Bob-tail Cooper you would have to at least put a 1.5 liter engine in it. After driving your 2.7 liter engine, a 1,100cc would be too weak for your liking. They are great little cars. And I agree with you it would be a fun ride.
photo lent site Richard Macon collection.

[David Birchall]

Robert Follows, a close friend here in Vancouver, had one of these cars in the eighties. His was the Sebring class winning car either in 56 or 57. I recall squeezing into the 'passenger seat' for a blast around the local roads-great fun. It was a fast car but the ERSA gearbox was delicate I recall. Certainly it would make a pleasant relief from all the Lotus Elevens in historic racing now. I owned an incomplete Bob tail for a while but never fiished it-don't recall what happened to that.

[Jerry Entin]

Here is Bob Drake in the Joe Lubin owned Cooper. Also in the picture are Joe Playan in the #29 Porsche and the late Jack McAfee in the #88 Porsche.
Lester Nehamkin photo-From Joe Playan collection.

[Bloggsworth]

The ERSA gearbox weighed as much as an engine, well it seemed that way if you had to change the transfer gears, on your own, in the middle of the night, because the driver had to get his head down as qualifying was at 8 AM! Thank God for Hewland!

It is 1964 since I did it last, but as I recall you had to split the gearbox on the drive shaft/Diff centreline to swap the transfer gears. You couldn't change the individual ratios, so the process was equivalent to changing the diff for different circuits.

I believe that the same gearbox did for the whole range from Bobtail/F.Junior/F2 and F1 and was built like a brick sh, sorry, outhouse; I think it was the Coletti gearbox used in the Rob Walker cars (They weren't allowed the ERSA box by Cooper) that gave Moss and Trintignant so much trouble.

[Bloggsworth]

That stirred the grey cells a trifle! I recall being at Brands Hatch, on an August Bank Holiday, and watching a brief bout of fisticuffs between Graham Hill and Chris Bristow after a collision between Hill's lotus 11 and Bristow's Cooper Bobtail, must have been '57 or '58 ........... Happy days.

They were weren't they. The only Grand Prix drivers not taking part in that day's 2 part F2 race, the "Kentish 100" were Fangio and the Ferrari drivers, IIRC.

[Barry Boor]

I have been informed that a certain S. C. Moss drove a Bobtail Cooper (a red one, #22) at Crystal Palace in 1955. I have not been able to confirm this fact.

Can anyone do so?

[Terry Walker]

This example was owned by Bill Patterson in Australia, passed through a few hands, and was bought by Peter Briggs at the end of 1968. By that time it had been modified to a conventional two-seater layout. Peter raced it at a couple of meetings at Wanneroo Park in 1969, and then took it off the racing circuit for a rebuild back to original centre-seat configuration. He still owns it. This car has actually been driven by Sir Stirls, at an Historics meet. It also turned out for the 2007 Caversham reunion and lapped the long-derelict circuit in the hands of Glenice Matthews, who as Glenice Staniforth was a former owner/driver - and who in fact raced it at the last-ever Caversham race meeting in 1968.

The colour scheme is Patterson's.

[Barry Boor]

Found it! It was 1956 NOT 1955 and he came second! - to Leston Leston in a similar car.....

But then beat him into second in another race at the same meeting.

[Mal9444]

Originally posted by Barry Boor
Found it! It was 1956 NOT 1955 and he came second! - to Leston Leston in a similar car.....

But then beat him into second in another race at the same meeting.

IIRC from DCN's wonderful My Cars My Career SCM bought that car privately but found the handling erratic and difficult. It was only later discovered that the car had been built and delivered with a twist in the chassis that caused the suspension to bottom-out half-way through the corner, flicking the car from oversteer to understeer. When this was then corrected the front end lifted, the suspension started working again and the car flicked back to oversteer! It occurred to me when I first read this that only someone as good as SCM could have driven the thing quickly at all.

Like T54, this little car has always been a favourite of mine too. I first saw them at Dundrod in '55 (where there was that terrible accident in which Jim Mayer was killed in one). Ivor the Driver came tenth and, again IIRC, won the 1,100cc class. Later, John Crossle bought one and kept it for a time at Innis's Garage in my home town, and being friends with his son I got to sit in it and make racing car noises. In those days it was just called a 'Cooper Climax'.

Who said Happy Days?

Has anyone ever used one as a road car?

[David M. Kane]

The late, great Bob Akin had one too. He raced a lot in the 1990 at Historic Events. I believe it was one of his favorites. It too was Red.

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Mal9444
Later, John Crossle bought one and kept it for a time at Innis's Garage in my home town, and being friends with his son I got to sit in it and make racing car noises. In those days it was just called a 'Cooper Climax'.

Was that before or after Chris Lindsay and John Pringle?

[Mal9444]

Originally posted by David McKinney

Was that before or after Chris Lindsay and John Pringle?

David - are you scolding me again? You are dealing with the recollection of a 63-year-old nostalgist recalling what he was told at the time as a 12-year-old schoolboy mesmerised by being allowed to stand close to, and sit in, a real racing car. I am not an even amateur motor-racing historian. (And don't I recall from another thread 'just because you know an historian does not make you one';) ?)

I infer from from you question that there is no record of John Crossle ever owning a T39 - am I correct? Perhaps then he was fettling it? But it was certainly in Leslie Innis's garage, opposite the cinema, next door to Dr McGowan's surgery

[David McKinney]

Sorry if I upset you, Malcolm
I don't know whether or not John Crossle had a Bob, but I do know Chris Lindsay was pretty successful in one, which may or may not have been run by John Pringle later.
(Memories of a 62-year-old nostalgist... );)

[Mal9444]

Not upset at all, David.

I merely assume that if you weigh in on the matter of who might or might not have owned that particular Cooper Climax in (about) 1956 in N Ireland you would probably know better than I.

Now you have set me asking myself was the minor god whom I was told owned the car Pringle and not Crossle after all.

I THINK the car in question was one that ran at (and survived) the '55 Dundrod TT and then stayed on in N Ireland. I'm fairly certain (see earlier remarks about schoolboy memories) that I saw it raced at Kirkiston or Ards - but if you tell me it was John Pringle, and not John Crossle, I'll take your word for it.

For certain it was the centre-seat T39 Bobtail, painted dark(ish) green, with a wrap-around shield.

[GD66]

David, can you help ? Do you know about the lineage of the Bobtail that used to go round in the late 60s in New Zealand in the hands of Grant Bloore ? They are pretty thin on the ground down this end of the globe, I wonder if it is the ex-Bill Patterson model that appears in the Caversham photo above. Whatever the case, I recall seeing pics of Jack Brabham hunched down in one, working hard...;)

[antonvrs]

In the early '60s I was a Tech inspector(scrutineer) for Cal Club in the Los Angeles area. In around 1963/4 there was a Bob-tail I used to see with a Corvair flat 6 stuffed in the back. I don't think it was very effective 'cause people were already stuffing aluminum Olds and Buick V8s in them. It sounded pretty good, though.
Anton

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by GD66
David, can you help ? Do you know about the lineage of the Bobtail that used to go round in the late 60s in New Zealand in the hands of Grant Bloore ? They are pretty thin on the ground down this end of the globe, I wonder if it is the ex-Bill Patterson model that appears in the Caversham photo above. Whatever the case, I recall seeing pics of Jack Brabham hunched down in one, working hard...;)

No, the Patterson car stayed on its own side of the Tasman, as AFAIK did a second one in Australia at about the same time.
The car Grant Bloor raced was one of two NZ Bobtails. At the beginning of 1957 Jack Brabham brought out the 1500cc (FWB) car he had raced with the works team in Europe the previous year, while Ronnie Moore raced an 1100cc (FWA) version. (Australian Allan Mackay also ran an 1100 in NZ at the same time, but that was sold in Oz). The Brabham car went to Bruce McLaren, Merv Neil, George Lawton and back to Merv Neil, while the Moore one stayed in the South Island with Ian McKellar and Ken MacMillan, then came north for Doug Lawrence.
The lineage gets complicated at this point. The 1500 had had a hard life, the 1100 less so. Doug Lawrence bought the 1500, transferred the good bits (bigger engine, disc brakes etc) to his earlier car, and put the inferior bits in the inferior (ex-Brabham etc) car. This was sold to Colin Ngan and later passed to Jamie Aislaibie while the ex-Moore car, now with 1500 engine, was raced by Lawrence (and his teenage son Graeme) then Ian Green, Doug Smyth and Bloor. Bloor replaced the ageing FWB engine with a 1500 pushrod Ford and the next owner, John Hyde, ran this until about 1970, by which time engine-size was up to 1790cc. This car was eventually sold to Australia while the other was all but destroyed in a fire.

[GD66]

How good's TNF ? David, you are a mine of fascinating information. Hats off, sir.

[cooper997]

This monrning set within a regular email from Vintage Race Car magaine was a familiar sight in the form of Bill Patterson's Cooper Bobtail. Turns out it has been included in Bonhams auction for 7th March.

 

I admit to not having seen the car since Paul Savoy ran it at Phillip Island in the early part of this decade, after he had procured it from Peter Briggs in 2009. So that begs the question is it likely to be Paul who has sent the car overseas recently? Or did it leave these shores sometime earlier?

 

Also from the Bonhams sales pitch it has required a new body in recent times. Does anyone know the venue/date when damaged please? That can be pm'd if preferred. 

 

Slightly bemused by the sales pitch stating that Alan Jack used the car sparingly. He ran many circuit racing and hillclimb meetings between late 1958 and late 1964.

 

https://www.bonhams..../25219/lot/303/

 

 

Stephen

 

[Rupertlt1]

So, what is this?

 

https://library.revs...ion=p17257coll1

 

RGDS RLT

[Patrick Fletcher]

If you can lay your hands on a copy of Eagle Book of Cars and Motorsport by Peter Roberts 1958, Page # 61 has two very nice photos. Les Leston driver.

Reading the text the car is part of the "Academy for Aces" or "Cooper's College" at Brands Hatch. Ian Burgess was head of Training division.

Edited by Patrick Fletcher, 19 February 2019 - 09:33.

[sabrejet]

Looks a bit flat for Brands surely?

[Ray Bell]

I'd agree with that...

Of the British circuits I've seen the most likely is Castle Combe, but there are more expert ones than me out there on British circuits.

[ellrosso]

One of Lyn Archer in the 1100cc at Pub (Longford cnr) cnr in 1959 and two of Max Stephens in the Bristol engine car. The Symmons shot had 1961 written on it - looks like Austin Miller behind him. Hillclimb shot had Domain, 1958 but I can't verify that - after Jim Barrie was killed they never ran there again so I didn't get to attend one. Also one of Archer at Mountford cnr 1959

Edited by ellrosso, 20 February 2019 - 03:33.