Cooper-Climax

Interesting facts

Father and son Charles and John Cooper founded the Cooper Car Company in December 1947 in a garage in Surbiton, initially racing 500cc single-seaters. The rear-engine layout was not entirely new - German constructors of the 1920s and 1930s had experimented with it too - but it was Cooper who made it practical and popular, partly because the layout suited motorcycle-derived drivetrains better. At the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix, Stirling Moss scored the first Formula One win for a rear-engined car in a Cooper, and Maurice Trintignant's win at Monaco that same year confirmed it: the rear-engine revolution had stunned the racing world. Jack Brabham became World Champion in a Cooper-Climax in both 1959 and 1960, making Cooper both Constructors' and Drivers' champion at once - the moment that sealed the rear engine's ultimate triumph, as every champion after 1958 raced sitting in front of the engine. Coventry Climax engines underpinned the early success, but the team struggled to keep up as regulations tightened and rivals developed rapidly. Cooper-Climax's Formula 1 history ran from 1959 to 1968, 9 seasons in total as a British team. Cooper-Climax won the Constructors' Championship 2 times, in 1959, 1960. The team scored a total of 192 constructors' championship points.