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Justin Maeers’ Cooper Monaco: straight from gavel to grid
FROM AUCTION TO race track in ten minutes: that’s how the headlines went. Actually, it was more like 36 hours, but it’s still a great story. Justin Maeers attended Silverstone Auctions’ competition car sale the night before the 2015 Silverstone Classic, unexpectedly came away the owner of a 1959 Cooper Monaco – and raced it in the Classic on the Saturday.
‘I’d gone along for the free Champagne really, and after lots of that, and against a telephone bidder from Australia, I ended up with the car. I hadn’t intended to race it at that stage, but when Charles Gillett’s Willment went pop in practice, we thought, what about the Cooper?’
A mad dash got it out of the Wing building and into scrutineering before the entry deadline, and Maeers found himself at the back of the Stirling Moss Trophy for Pre ’61 Sports Cars grid on Saturday morning. Gearbox failure meant he didn’t finish, but subsequent work saw second places at this year’s Donington Historic Festival and VSCC Spring Start.
Maeers is a man of eclectic tastes who’s gifted with engineering skills, racing a Triumph TR3, and owning the de Havilland Cirrus Hermesengined Parker GN, along with the RIP Morgan four-wheeler that Charlie Martin races (see
Octane 151). I first encountered him 20-odd years ago, when he threw his GN-Ford off the Willaston Pursuit Sprint track and into some building footings in the Manx Classic. ‘I’d had a Lola T70 MkIIIB – a fantastic car with that V8 grunt, but I wasn’t racing it enough so I sold it. Later I looked for another, but they were too expensive. So I started thinking about a Coventry Climax-engined car. Charles Gillett had been raving about his Climax-engined Willment, and everybody told me a Cooper Monaco could outperform a Lister Jag because they’re better on the brakes and in corners.’
The Cooper Monaco was built from 1958 as a replacement for the centre-seat ‘Bobtail’, and was a front-runner in sports car races, notably with Stirling Moss. Chassis T49 002 was built in 1959, and delivered to Hermano da Silva in France. Later that year it travelled to Sebring for the 12 hours, where, driven by Jean Lucas and Jean-François Malle as team ‘Los Amigos’, it failed after 20 laps with ‘oil loss’. It remained in da Silva’s hands until 1988, when it was owned by Mario Ilotte in Italy, and then in 1992 passed to Jeffrey Pattinson, former owner of Coys, who raced it with some success, as did subsequent owners Frank Sytner and Graeme Dodd. It finished second in the Madgwick Cup in the 2007 Goodwood Revival Meeting, and won its race at the 2012 Oulton Park Gold Cup.
‘It’s been a fantastic little car. It handles very similarly to a Nash – on narrow tyres it breaks away early, nice and drifty, and very well balanced. Unlike the T70, even after an hour’s racing you’re still ready for more, out in the fresh air like vintage motoring. Though if you’re taller than 5ft 10in you’re in trouble.
‘I’ve got two Coventry Climax FPF engines and they make 200 and 205bhp. There’s plenty of go from 4000, though I only rev it to 6500 as I don’t want to be rebuilding them all the time – Gillett uses 7000. Taking it to bits from time to time means I understand how it all works.’