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77-416: Ralph Broad began racing in 1955, when he was in his late twenties. In 1959, he bought an early BMC Mini and immediately began to see success racing it, which helped him to sell racing conversion packages to other Mini owners. This arrangement developed into the 1962 establishment of Team Broadspeed, for which Broad himself remained one of the drivers. The Broadspeed cars were often seen as being competitive with

154-455: A JAP motorcycle engine. Since materials were in short supply immediately after World War II , the prototypes were constructed by joining two old Fiat Topolino front-ends together. According to John Cooper, the stroke of genius that would make the Coopers an automotive legend—the location of the engine behind the driver—was merely a practical matter at the time. As the car was powered by

231-582: A Porsche 962 , as well as a new 956, replacing the Brands Hatch winning 956. The 962 was not popular with JFR's drivers and was sold early into the 1985 season. Only one further victory was gained, this being in a DRM round at the Norisring with Thierry Boutsen behind the wheel, perhaps this was not really surprising, for by then there were so many top-class 956s in action that wins were spread very thinly amongst them. When Skoal Bandit pulled out at

308-498: A Formula Ford car called the Oscar and also a series of Oval Circuit cars known as Fireballs. Driving the rear-engine version of this car, Frank won more than 200 races during a period up until 1975 in a car he had designed and raced himself. This record is believed to have never been beaten. In all, Coopers participated in 129 Formula One World Championship events in nine years, winning 16 races. Besides Formula One cars, Cooper offered

385-492: A T12 model, Cooper had its first taste of top-tier racing when Harry Schell qualified for the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix . Though Schell retired in the first lap, this marked the first appearance of a rear-engined racer at a Grand Prix event since the end of WWII. The front-engined Formula Two Cooper Bristol model was introduced in 1952. Various iterations of this design were driven by a number of legendary drivers – among them Juan Manuel Fangio and Mike Hawthorn – and furthered

462-462: A Torana (both DNF). He teamed with four-time winner Allan Moffat in 1979 in a Ford XC Falcon Cobra (DNF) and again in 1980 in a Ford XD Falcon (DNF). He returned to join forces with Bob Morris in 1981 (XD Falcon - 2nd). His last appearance as a driver in Australia was to have been the 1982 James Hardie 1000 , but after Morris qualified their Ford XE Falcon in 6th place, Fitzpatrick had

539-757: A couple of races, Ginther was recalled by Honda to commence testing of their new car and the American was no doubt more than somewhat chagrined to discover that it was even bigger and heavier than the Cooper. After making a one-off arrangement with Chris Amon (unemployed due to the McLaren team's engine problems) to drive in the French Grand Prix , Cooper had an enormous stroke of luck when John Surtees became available after falling out with Ferrari. Once conflicting fuel contract issues were resolved (Surtees

616-548: A front wheel break going through Forrest Elbow during the Saturday afternoon practice session causing the car to crash heavily into the wall. The damage was enough to prevent the Seiko sponsored Falcon from starting Australia's Great Race. For 1977 , Fitzpatrick was back at Kremer Racing, where in five WCM races, he co-drove with Wollek to three podium finishes, reaching the top at Hockenheim . But John's main drive for ’77

693-410: A heavily modified Mini with a distinctive aerodynamic tail section made of fiberglass that replaced the original steel bodywork at the rear. The interior of the car was redesigned as well, with Restall front seats and a fold-down rear seat that provided access to the boot, which was no longer accessible from outside the car as a result of the new rear body shell. Mechanically, performance was enhanced with

770-403: A motorcycle engine, they believed it was more convenient to have the engine in the back, driving a chain. In fact there was nothing new about 'mid' engined racing cars but there is no doubt Coopers led the way in popularising what was to become the dominant arrangement for racing cars. Called the Cooper 500, this car's success in hillclimbs and on track, including Eric winning the 500 race at one of

847-477: A reworked cylinder head using larger inlet valves and polished tracts, a Broadspeed camshaft, a rear anti-roll bar, and other changes. The GT 2+2 was available in four different versions that represented different levels of performance, and a total of twenty-eight cars were built before production ended in 1968. John Fitzpatrick (racing driver) John Fitzpatrick (born in Birmingham , 9 June 1943)

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924-537: A series of Formula Junior cars. These were the T52 , T56 , T59 , and T67 models. Ken Tyrrell ran a very successful team with John Love and Tony Maggs as his drivers. Following the demise of Formula Junior, Ken Tyrrell tested Jackie Stewart in a Formula Three car, a Cooper T72. This test at the Goodwood Circuit marked the start of partnership which dominated motorsport later on. John Cooper retired to

1001-591: Is a British former racing driver, winning many titles throughout his career. He works within motorsport as a consultant doing corporate events and driver management. He published a book "Fitz-My Life at the Wheel" in 2016. He was one of the best Porsche drivers of his era. He began his career driving Touring cars in the BSCC and ETCC, winning the British Saloon Car Championship in 1966. First it

1078-688: The ADAC 1000 km Rennen . When Barbour's 935K3 wasn't available in Europe, Fitzpatrick piloted the Jägermeister Kremer version. Between these cars, he took three more wins, en route to 8th in the overall standings. This resulted in the Porsche Cup returning to his hands. In 1981, Dick Barbour experienced some financial setbacks and Fitzpatrick founded his own team, John Fitzpatrick Racing , with sponsorship from Sachs. In his debut season as

1155-697: The Cosworth-Ford DFV , but felt that its connections to British Leyland with the Mini-Coopers made this inadvisable. Instead, a deal was done with BRM for the use of its 3-litre V-12, originally conceived as a sports car unit, but which BRM themselves would be using in 1968. A slightly modified version of the T86 was built for the new engine, dubbed T86B and Italian ex-Ferrari driver Ludovico Scarfiotti and young Englishman Brian Redman were employed to drive it. The cars managed three-four finishes in

1232-708: The Jarama 4 Hours in alongside Mass For 1972, Fitzpatrick switched to the renowned BMW Team Schnitzer , for another attack at the ETCC title. After a second place in the Brno 2 hours, he joined Rolf Stommelen and Hans Heyer to win the Grosser Preis der Tourenwagen, (sometimes known as the 6 Hours of the Nürburgring ) in their BMW 2800 CS . He would finish sixth overall in the end of season standing, one better than

1309-527: The Maserati concession for the UK and arrangements were made for Cooper to build a new 3-litre Cooper-Maserati car which would be available for sale as well being raced by the works team. The Maserati engine was an updated and enlarged version of the 2.5-litre V-12 which had made sporadic appearances in the works 250Fs in 1957. It was an old design, heavy and thirsty and the new Cooper T81 chassis built to take it

1386-456: The Mid-Ohio round, beating Paul Jr., then had another convincing in at Lime Rock . The 935K4 would not reappear until Road America, where Fitzpatrick took another convincing win, then again at Mid-Ohio, sharing with Englishman David Hobbs . Another Englishman, Derek Bell , partnered Hobbs to assist Fitzpatrick to his third Los Angeles Times Grand Prix win in four seasons. The other JFR 935 at

1463-464: The Riverside was entered for Bell and Stommelen, who was the fastest 935 driver at that time, according to Bell. Rolf went off the road and damaged the car when on fresh tyres, did another lap slowly to check the car out, then went full-bore again only to have the rear body collapse, causing him to lose control and hit a wall. The team had no idea of the severity of Rolf's accident and switched Bell to

1540-584: The Spanish and Monaco Grands Prix, largely thanks to the unreliability of the competition, but then Scarfiotti was killed driving a Porsche in the Rossfeld hill climb and Redman had a big accident in the Belgian Grand Prix which put him out of action for several months. Cooper continued the season with a motley collection of drivers, none of whom could make anything of the outclassed T86B. During

1617-674: The 1950s and early 1960s they reached motor racing 's highest levels as their mid-engined, single-seat cars competed in both Formula One and the Indianapolis 500 , and their Mini Cooper dominated rally racing . The Cooper name lives on in the Cooper versions of the Mini production cars that are built in England, but is now owned and marketed by BMW . The first cars built by the Coopers were single-seat 500-cc Formula Three racing cars driven by John Cooper and Eric Brandon, and powered by

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1694-522: The 1967 season had the team's fortunes steadily decline and the midseason appearance of the lighter and slimmer T86 chassis failed to improve things. Rindt, impatiently seeing out his Cooper contract, deliberately blew up his increasingly antiquated Maserati engine in the US Grand Prix and was fired before the season finale in Mexico . For 1968, Cooper would have liked to have joined the queue for

1771-598: The 1975 season. With John back again Schnitzer, he would win a third Austria-Trophäe. For the 1975 European GT season, Fitzpatrick was back with Gelo. It seemed that he might win a third title in four seasons, but fierce competition in the Gelo Team from Tim Schenken and Toine Hezemans, handed the title to Tebernuma Racing's Hartwig Bertrams and their RSR. 1976 saw the eagerly awaited World Championship for Makes [WCM] based on silhouette cars arrive, but only one marque

1848-536: The 1985 Norisring round of the WEC, the works Porsches were not entered, which left one of their lead drivers, Bell, without a drive, so Fitzpatrick offered him one. Bell called the 956 "diabolical. It was painfully, visibly slow, but I drove my backside off from virtually last place of the grid, struggling round to take 11th place shortly before the end". His works teammate, Hans Stuck , had electronic troubles with his Joest Racing Porsche, and eventually wound up 15th. So, at

1925-486: The 956 was returned to Europe, to race in the Grand Prix International 1000 km , at Brands Hatch , it featured many enhances not seen on the works cars. The soaking Kent track let JFR try out their aerodynamic tweaks and Fitzpatrick and partner for this race, Derek Warwick became only the second team to beat the works team. For 1984, Guy Edwards brought Skoal Bandit sponsor to the team. JFP added

2002-662: The Austria-Trophäe, at the Salzburgring alongside raising Touring Car star, Dieter Glemser . After taking two more podium finishes, including a second place in the Spa 24 Hours , he would finish fifth in the overall standings. 1974 saw Fitzpatrick return to the European GT Championship. Although the new Porsche 911 Carrera RSR had no competition, the title chase was entertaining, but only because of

2079-544: The BSCC history books. Team Broadspeed were contracted by Ford to run two 1000cc Ford Anglias in the BSCC, to be driven by Fitzpatrick and Peter Proctor. Peter Proctor had a severe accident in the Goodwood race and his place was taken by Anita Taylor. Fitzpatrick won the Championship overall. Fitzpatrick followed this with a second place overall the following year, before Broadspeed changed to the new Ford Escorts. In

2156-495: The British Saloon Car Championship [BSCC], with his pre-career largely unknown. From 1963, Team Broadspeed , employed Fitzpatrick to race their Austin Mini Cooper S in the three of the closing rounds of the year. He won points, although his season was brought to a close with two retirements in the final rounds. For 1964, Fitzpatrick switched to the factory backed Cooper Car Company team, taking his first victory (in class) at

2233-722: The Chipstead Motor Group in April 1965. The same year, the Formula One team moved from Surbiton to a modern factory unit at Canada Road, Oyster Lane in Byfleet, just along the road from Brabham in New Haw and close to Alan Mann Racing . Cooper's 1965 season petered out and at the end of the year, number one driver Bruce McLaren left to build his own F1 car for the new for 1966 3-litre formula. Cooper's new owners held

2310-578: The Cologne rivalry between Kremer and Georg Loos (Gelo Racing) teams. Drivers switched between the two outfits during the season, including John. Despite this Fitzpatrick got the title by a lot smaller, margin that in 1972 – just 9pts., after winning three races. In the lad from the West Midlands would also win the Porsche Cup for the second time. Another season in the ETCC, and another switched of marques, as Fitzpatrick moves back to München , for

2387-695: The ETCC from his schedule, concentration solely of Group 5 racing with Gelo Racing and their Porsche 935. There was mixed fortunes for John, with winless season in the DRM. However, in the WCM, results were better. Firstly with new partners, Wollek and Manfred Schurti , John was able to retain the Mugello 6 Hours. With Fitzpatrick and Wollek entered in two cars for the Rivet Supply Silverstone 6 Hours . Their car with Schurti encountered Turbo problems, but

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2464-637: The Englishman swept the IMSA GT Championship and beat everybody, including the 1979 Champion, Gregg, winning seven of the fourteen races. These included some of top races; 12 Hours of Sebring and Los Angeles Times Grand Prix, where he was partnered by Barbour and the WCM round at Mosport Park , where Redman joined him. Back in Europe, Fitzpatrick a Dick Barbour car to victory in the ADAC Norisring Trophäe , and 2nd place in

2541-601: The Fitzpatrick-Hobbs car. The team of all-English drivers went on to win, unaware that Rolf had died. Away from North America, Fitzpatrick was back behind the wheel of an ETCC Jaguar. He joined Tom Walkinshaw Racing for a few events, a best being a home victory in the Donington 500. Although the Jaguar XJS won on home soil, it was not without some drastic measures by TWR, like the second Jaguar blocking

2618-551: The Grand Prix Brno, held on the old Masaryk Circuit , albeit in 16th place following an exploding tyre. Despite Jaguar pulling out of the ETCC, Fitzpatrick found himself in great demand, so much so, he was racing in three major championships, winning races in all of them. His berth in ETCC was the Luigi Team / BMW Italia. Here, he teamed up with Umberto Grano to win the Mugello 100 Giri. Just three weeks earlier, at

2695-490: The Indianapolis establishment gradually realized the writing was on the wall and the days of their front-engined roadsters were numbered. Beginning with Jim Clark , who drove a rear-engined Lotus in 1965, every winner of the Indianapolis 500 since has had the engine in the back. The revolution begun by the little chain-driven Cooper 500 was complete. Once every Formula car manufacturer began building mid-engined racers,

2772-585: The Jaguar racing entries in the ETCC, and in 1977 Ralph Broad sold Broadspeed to a former Mini-racing colleague before retiring to Portugal. While living in Portugal, Broad worked for Fogo Montanha, a manufacturer of woodburning stoves. He died on 17 September 2010. In 1966, the company introduced a car which they sold under their own name, the Broadspeed GT 2+2. It was not an entirely new car, but rather

2849-535: The Mini and various Cooper conversion kits have been, and continue to be, marketed by various companies. The current BMW MINI , in production since 2001, has Cooper and Cooper S models and a number of John Cooper Works tuner packages. On 1 April 1968, John Cooper leased the building, 243 Ewell Road, to the Metropolitan Police and the local Traffic Division (V Victor) moved in. They would stay there for

2926-644: The States, running in the Can-Am series because the car was prohibited from the IMSA Camel GT series because of safety issues. The SCCA allowed the 956 provided they complied with full Group C and Can-Am rules. Although this rendered them less than fully competitive, the team's 956 won at Elkhart Lake , on its first American outing. Whilst in the US, JFR had the opportunity of doing some unseen development work. When

3003-539: The Sussex coast, where in 1971, he founded the garage business at Ferring, near Worthing. The garage sold Mini Cooper engine-tuning kits and performance parts. The garage was sold to Honda in 1986 and the business was moved to East Preston to convert Mini Coopers into race cars. In October 2009, Mike Cooper, the son of John Cooper, launched Cooper Bikes, the bicycle division of the Cooper Car Company. As

3080-477: The car was Owen Maddock , who was employed by Cooper Car Company. Maddock was known as 'The Beard' by his workmates, and 'Whiskers' to Charles Cooper. Maddock was a familiar figure in the drivers' paddock of the 1950s in open-neck shirt and woolly jumper and a prime force behind the rise of British racing cars to their dominant position in the 1960s. Describing how the revolutionary rear-engined Cooper chassis came to be, Maddock explained, "I'd done various schemes for

3157-455: The championship-winning Cooper T53 "Lowlines" to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a test in 1960, then entered the famous 500-mile race in a larger, longer, and offset car based on the 1960 F1 design, the unique Type T54. Arriving at the Speedway 5 May 1961, the "funny" little car from Europe was mocked by the other teams, but it ran as high as third and finished ninth. It took a few years, but

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3234-472: The company became the world's first and largest postwar, specialist manufacturer of racing cars for sale to privateers . Cooper built up to 300 single-and twin-cylinder cars during the 1940s and 1950s, and dominated the F3 category, winning 64 of 78 major races between 1951 and 1954. This volume of construction was unique and enabled the company to grow into the senior categories; With a modified Cooper 500 chassis,

3311-600: The company was also offering engineering consultancy work that led to such creations as a turbocharged version of the Essex V6 engine , which appeared in the TVR M Series . This turbocharged engine was also used in the Broadspeed Bullitt, which was a modified Ford Capri Mk I. Broadspeed became reacquainted with BMC in 1974, by which time the manufacturer had become part of British Leyland . Driver Andy Rouse then won

3388-607: The company's fortunes in Formula One declined, however, the John Cooper-conceived Mini – introduced in 1961 as a development of the Alec Issigonis -designed British Motor Corporation Mini with a more powerful engine, new brakes, and a distinctive livery – continued to dominate in saloon car and rally races throughout the 1960s, winning many championships and the 1964, 1965, and 1967 Monte Carlo rallies . Several different Cooper-marked versions of

3465-488: The company's growing reputation by appearing in Grand Prix races, which at the time were run to F2 regulations. Until the company began building rear-engined sports cars in 1955, they really had not become aware of the benefits of having the engine behind the driver. Based on the 500-cc cars and powered by a modified Coventry Climax fire-pump engine, these cars were called "Bobtails". With the centre of gravity closer to

3542-459: The departure of McLaren, Cooper had a seat to fill in the second car and with the team's recent lack of success, understandably, a large queue of potential drivers was not forming at Canada Road. In the circumstances, Cooper were fortunate to acquire the services of Honda's Richie Ginther , who was temporarily unemployed due to the Japanese company's late development of their new 3-litre car. After

3619-415: The end of 1984, JFR had difficulty in maintaining adequate levels of finance. One car was leased to Manuel Lopez and raced with sponsorship from Canal 9 Peru; it was written off at Silverstone and had to be rebuilt around a new 962 chassis. With backing from the American 100s cigarettes, two cars were entered into the 1985 Le Mans 24 hours, but one of these, the rebuilt car crashed heavily in practise. For

3696-704: The end of the year, Bell was given the World Championship on the basis of this tie-decider – 11th as opposed to 15th at the Norisring. After the 1000 km di Mugello, where he finished 4th with Hobbs and Boutsen, Fitzpatrick hung up his helmet, preferring to concentrate on team organisation. He relocated to Spain, and racing during 1986 with backing from various Spanish businesses, notably Danone, he retired from Motor Sport, and he sold his entire team, including racing cars, transporters and all equipment to Jochen Dauer . John Fitzpatrick intended to expand

3773-533: The factory works Coopers, especially at the hands of John Fitzpatrick , who had become the team's top driver. In 1965, Broadspeed began to transition its support from BMC to Ford products after Broad was approached by Ford with an offer to begin campaigning the Ford Anglia , and later the Escort . In 1971, John Fitzpatrick would win four British Touring Car Championship races in a Broadspeed Anglia. Eventually,

3850-487: The feat in the next race at Monaco, the racing world was stunned and a rear-engined revolution had begun. The next year, 1959 , Brabham and the Cooper works team became the first to win the Formula One World Championship in a rear-engined car. Both team and driver repeated the feat in 1960 , and every World Champion since has been sitting in front of the engine. The little-known designer behind

3927-518: The final four years that he competed in the BSCC, Fitzpatrick would not challenge for the title. Team Broadspeed bought a Ford Escort for Fitzpatrick, which meant he would compete directly with the Mini Coopers once more. 1968 saw the Escort struggle early on, however, as the car was not homologated until the third race of the year. Nonetheless, Fitzpatrick took four class wins on the trot during

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4004-419: The first postwar meetings at Gransden Lodge Airfield , quickly created demand from other drivers (including, over the years, Stirling Moss , Peter Collins , Jim Russell , Ivor Bueb , Ken Tyrrell , and Bernie Ecclestone ) and led to the establishment of the Cooper Car Company to build more. The business grew by providing an inexpensive entry to motorsport for seemingly every aspiring young British driver, and

4081-408: The first race. A second win resulted from the fourth meeting, ultimately finishing second in the championship to Jim Clark . In 1965 , Fitzpatrick returned to Team Broadspeed, remaining with them for the rest of his BSCC career. The season saw Fitzpatrick claim three podiums (including a class win) in his Morris Mini Cooper S 970 . It would be in 1966 , however, that Fitzpatrick put his name into

4158-682: The last few laps. Initially thought to be an engine problem or a broken axle (which the L34 Torana's were notorious for doing), it was later revealed that an oil seal had failed and the leaking oil was getting into the clutch making it slip badly and slowing him down, especially on the steeper parts of the Mount Panorama Circuit . Fitzpatrick was a regular driver at Bathurst, first teaming with 1967 winner Fred Gibson in an Alfa Romeo 2000 GTV in 1975 , winning with Morris in 1976 while again joining Morris in 1977 and 1978 in

4235-405: The leading BMW, and passing under a yellow flag. That second Jag was driven by Martin Brundle , Enzo Calderari and Fitzpatrick. Thanks to a high level of sponsorship from J. David, Fitzpatrick was able to purchase two Porsche 956s to run in the World Endurance Championship [WEC] series and did in fact become the privateer to field a multi-car team of 956s. JFR was also the first use a 956 in

4312-403: The manufacturer's title in a Triumph Dolomite Sprint. In 1975, Broad got a contract to prepare Jaguar XJ Series II V12 Coupes for entry in the Group 2 class of the European Touring Car Championship . Despite being well-driven by Andy Rouse and Derek Bell , they were not competitive with the much lighter BMW 3.0L CSL . For financial reasons, British Leyland elected to discontinue support for

4389-479: The middle of the car, they found it was less liable to spins and much more effective at putting the power down to the road, so they decided to build a single-seater version and began entering it in Formula 2 races. Jack Brabham raised some eyebrows when he took sixth place at the 1957 Monaco Grand Prix in a rear-engined Formula 1 Cooper. When Stirling Moss won the 1958 Argentine Grand Prix in Rob Walker's privately entered Cooper and Maurice Trintignant duplicated

4466-472: The middle of the season, finishing sixth overall. 1969 saw a further three wins for Fitzpatrick, resulting in a 7th place overall. In 1970 and 1971, Fitzpatrick would claim a further fifteen wins in class, taking third on the championship in 1970 . The new regulations introduced that year seemed to provoke Fitzpatrick to end his driving career in the series, as he entered the world of endurance racing full-time after 1971. In 1971, Fitzpatrick had signed for

4543-463: The new car which I'd shown to Charlie Cooper. He kept saying 'Nah, Whiskers, that's not it, try again.' Finally, I got so fed up I sketched a frame in which every tube was bent, meant just as a joke. I showed it to Charlie and to my astonishment he grabbed it and said: 'That's it!' " Maddock later pioneered one of the first designs for a honeycomb monocoque stressed skin composite chassis, and helped develop Cooper's C5S racing gearbox. Brabham took one of

4620-445: The next 25 years and 'TDV' would become one of the busier police garages. In August 1968, they were supplied with two Mini Coopers, index numbers PYT767F and PYT768F. The centre boss of the steering wheel was replaced by a speaker and microphone and a PTT transmitter switch, was added to the steering column. The vehicles were trialled for a number of months, but no orders were placed for other garages. The police subsequently moved out, and

4697-414: The one with Heyer was victorious, winning by over seven laps. Gelo continued their good form, into the next round, with Fitzpatrick; Wollek and Schurti taking the spoils in the ADAC 1000 km Rennen . 1980 was the year the Porsche 935K3 became prominent, both across Europe and North America. Dick Barbour Racing had two of their own cars and hired Fitzpatrick as their lead driver. This was a good choice, as

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4774-421: The podium in second and third places! The third series Fitzpatrick drove in, was the Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft [DRM]. Although he had raced in the championship before, this was the first time he raced the whole series with Gelo Racing, finishing 4th overall in the process. During this season, he scored 7 podium finishes, the best being his victory in the ADAC-Trophy at Zandvoort. For 1979, he dropped

4851-414: The practicality and intelligent construction of Cooper's single-seaters was overtaken by more sophisticated technology from Lola , Lotus , BRM , and Ferrari . The Cooper team's decline was accelerated when John Cooper was seriously injured in a road accident in 1963 driving a twin-engined Mini, and Charles Cooper died in 1964. After the death of his father, John Cooper sold the Cooper Formula One team to

4928-495: The previous season. Meanwhile, away from the ETCC, Fitzpatrick was busy racing a Porsche 911 S for the Porsche Kremer team. He won five of the nine races in the inaugural European GT Championship, en route to the title, beating his nearest rival, Claude Haldi by more than double his points (125pts v 61pts). He also won the coveted Porsche Cup. In the ETCC, Fitzpatrick returned to Ford Köln, to race their Ford Capri RS 2600 . This switched back to Ford, saw him triumph again in

5005-493: The season, Cooper built a modified chassis, the T86C, intended to take an Alfa Romeo 3-litre V-8 but the project was stillborn. The beginning of the end for the Cooper Car Company was in 1969, as it tried, and failed, to find sponsorship for a new Cosworth DFV -powered car and there were many redundancies. Frank Boyles was the last to leave, since he was in charge of building customer cars and it had been hoped that some more F2 cars would be sold. Frank went on to design and build

5082-434: The team and immediately won the opening race of 1967 in South Africa in an unlikely Cooper one-two. This was a fortuitous win for Rodríguez, as he was being outpaced by Rhodesian John Love in his three-year-old ex McLaren Tasman Cooper powered by a 2.7-litre Coventry Climax FPF. Unfortunately, Love had to make a late pit stop for fuel and could only finish second. This was to be Cooper's last Grand Prix victory. The rest of

5159-655: The team into CART for the 1984 season with J. David sponsorship using March customer chassis but the project did not come to fruition. ( key ) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.) † Events with 2 races staged for the different classes. ^ Race with 2 heats - Aggregate result. Cooper Car Company The Cooper Car Company was a British car manufacturer founded in December 1947 by Charles Cooper and his son John Cooper . Together with John's boyhood friend, Eric Brandon , they began by building racing cars in Charles's small garage in Surbiton , Surrey , England, in 1946. Through

5236-512: The team owner-driver of John Fitzpatrick Racing, he was assisted by the Kremer brothers. By the second race of the 1981 season , he was back in Victory Lane, by winning the Camel GT race at Road Atlanta . Then co-driven by Jim Busby to another victory in the Los Angeles Times Grand Prix. Although the championship for 1982, was between John Paul Jr. and the Interscope Lola T600 of Ted Field and Danny Ongais , John Fitzpatrick Racing [JFR] had some good races with their impressive 935K4. John took

5313-481: The very same Mugello , driving for Georg Loos (Gelo Racing) Team's Porsche 935, he won the Mugello 6 Hours, a round of the WCM. This time he was partnered by Toine Hezemans and Hans Heyer. When the series arrived in the United States, Heyer was replaced by Peter Gregg, for a race at the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen , helping Fitzpatrick and Hezemans to victory. The next round was back in Italy, the 6 Ore di Vallelunga , which although Fitzpatrick did not win, he did finish on

5390-420: The win by a mere 20 metres from Bob Wollek and Hans Heyer in a Porsche 935 K2. This pairing would also finish second in the 1000 Martha / Österreichring 6 Hours. Away from the WCM, Fitzpatrick was winning races outside of Europe. He piloted a BMW 3.0 CSL on behalf of BMW of North America to victory in the 24 Hours of Daytona . Originally, Fitzpatrick was paired with Walkinshaw, but when their car retired, he

5467-417: The works Ford outfit, Ford Köln, to race in the European Touring Car Championship (ETCC), where he partnered Jochen Mass in the endurance events. After the pair finished 4th in Monza in their Ford Escort RS 1600, Fitzpatrick would race solo in a selection of events, winning the first of these, the Austria-Trophäe, at the Salzburgring . After not finishing any other races, until his final race of 1971, he won

5544-737: Was Minis, then Ford Anglias and Escorts; BMW CSs and then Porsche 911s. He then became renowned for his expertise at driving the German machines. He was crowned European GT Champion in 1972, and then again in 1974. He moved to the United States in 1980, driving for Dick Barbour Racing, and capturing the IMSA Camel GT Championship in the process. He won the prestigious Porsche Cup in 1972, 1974 and 1980. In 1981, he moved from driver to team owner-driver, with some success. Fitzpatrick had little racing experience before he entered

5621-624: Was back to Touring Cars. He had rejoined Broadspeed, to race the Jaguar XJ12C , however the racing programme got off on the wrong foot because British Leyland would not finalise the decision whether or not to continue with the programme following their debut in 1976. This mean Ralph Broad and Broadspeed guys did not know whether to get on with their development programme. Once Leyland gave the go ahead, valuable time had been lost. Fitzpatrick found himself partnering Tim Schenken , together they raced eight times for Jaguar, they only finished once, in

5698-416: Was necessarily on the large side, in spite of which the bulky V-12 always looked as though it was spilling out of the back. Three cars were sold to private owners, one each to Rob Walker for Jo Siffert to drive, Jo Bonnier 's Anglo Swiss Racing Team, and French privateer Guy Ligier . None of these cars achieved much success. Jochen Rindt was entering the second year of his three-year contract, but with

5775-545: Was ready; Porsche. Unfortunately for Fitzpatrick, he was racing a BMW 3.5 CSL for Hermetite Products. Although the car was supplied by BMW Motorsport, it was outdated really, but fragile. During the Silverstone 6 Hours, the works Porsche of Jochen Mass and Jacky Ickx hit trouble along with the fast turbo version of the BMW CSL of Ronnie Peterson and Gunnar Nilsson , allowing Fitzpatrick and Tom Walkinshaw through to

5852-587: Was switched to the sister car of Peter Gregg and Brian Redman , which would go on to victory, winning by 14 laps. Following a second place in the RAC Tourist Trophy , he triumphed in the Hardie-Ferodo 1000 in an Australian Group C Holden Torana L34 touring car with Bob Morris driving for Ron Hodgson Motors . In a dramatic finish, Fitzpatrick nursed the Torana home trailing smoke over

5929-586: Was with Shell, Cooper with BP), Surtees joined the team. Cooper honoured its commitment to Amon, so three cars were run in the French GP. Subsequently, the team reverted to two entries for Surtees and Rindt and with the former Ferrari driver's development skills and a switch to Firestone tyres, the car was improved to the point that Surtees was able to win the final race of the year in Mexico . Surtees left to join Honda for 1967 and Pedro Rodríguez joined Rindt in

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