‘I’ve bought a classic racing car purely for nostalgic reasons’
Buying a car you can’t fit in sounds like folly, but Gordon couldn’t be happier – his new Cooper 500 is a nostalgic treat with an amazing history
Ivery rarely buy cars I can’t fit in but last month I did just that, getting a Cooper purely for nostalgic reasons.
My earliest recollection of racing cars was in Durban, South Africa in 1952 when I was six or seven. I recall my father taking me to the garage where he worked as a mechanic and watching him help friends work on cars over the weekend.
Cooper must have been one of the first constructors to sell production racing cars, and they were affordable and fast. I remember Dad working on an early Cooper 500 Formula 3 car, although I can’t recall which model – in the late Forties and early Fifties the 500’s shape was pretty constant.
I had been keeping an eye out for a 500 to buy for some time and last month I noticed one for sale. A phone call later I was the proud owner of a 1951 Cooper MKV, chassis number MKV/12/51. The little car is in great shape and has been well restored.
There was a good deal of excitement when the car was delivered to our company [Gordon Murray Design] and I couldn’t quite believe how lucky I was to find such a good example. For the first week I had to take a trip to the workshop at least twice a day to make sure the car was still there! This Cooper has a great history. It was originally ordered by Derek Annable, a Buckinghamshire farmer. He requested the finish to be in cream with red upholstery to match his mother’s Bentley, which was probably his towcar!
In the early Fifties Annable raced and travelled with Stirling Moss and though Moss often used Annable’s cars it’s not certain he raced this particular one.
The Autocar of 28 September 1951 records Annable coming third at Brands Hatch after ‘the worst accident yet to occur at the Kentish track’. Battling for the lead, 21-year- old Bernie Ecclestone in his Cooper 500 was involved in a collision with a JBS. Ecclestone shot through a fence into a spectator who fractured a thigh. Ecclestone was badly shaken and retired.
In 1952 ownership passed to Jim Miekle in Ireland who fitted a pulse jet to the chassis and radically altered the bodywork. The car was demonstrated at Kirkiston in 1958, then Rheims and Goodwood – it was one of the world’s first jet cars. The noise could be heard 10 miles away – it was truly deafening and spectators were told to bring earplugs.
Such was the heat generated it was necessary to find an alloy for the bodywork that would withstand the 30ft flames emitted from the back end. Two French guided-missile engineers helped out…
By now the car was in New Zealand where Ian and Bev Garmey bought it in 1981, and a full rebuild took place to take it back to its original Formula 3 Cooper 500 specification.
In 2013 it underwent a complete restoration by Ian Garmey before he sold the car back to the UK in April 2015, including new panels, a rebuilt engine and the original seat.
This Cooper brings back such great memories for me, not just because of my father and my early recollections of South African racing but because Pete and Fred Bedding, who both worked with me at Brabham, used to make Cooper bodies. Unfortunately I don’t fit in the car, but I’m sure I will have plenty of volunteers from our prototype shop should I wish to enter it in a historic hillclimb or two…
Gordon Murray is one of the most innovative automotive designers of his generation. He designed Gp-winning F1 cars for Brabham and Mclaren and the Mclaren F1 road car