The team that put the engine behind the driver and made every front-engined Grand Prix car obsolete.
Seasons
1950–1969
Identities
1
Race wins
16
Titles
2 CWC · 2 WDC
Identity timeline
Each bar is a name this entry raced under. Select one to jump straight to its written history.
Cooper's championships matter less than its layout. Once Jack Brabham won titles in a mid-engined Cooper, every serious constructor copied it within two years — including Ferrari.
Written history by identity
1950 — 1969
1950–1969: the garagiste revolution
Cooper Car Company
The rear-engine revolution; back-to-back titles in 1959-60.
Charles and John Cooper built rear-engined 500cc racers in Surbiton after the war, a formula that trained a generation of British drivers. Stirling Moss gave the marque its first Grand Prix win in a privately entered Cooper at Argentina in 1958.
Jack Brabham won the drivers' and constructors' championships in 1959 and 1960, forcing the entire grid to move the engine behind the driver. Enzo Ferrari's dismissive term for the British kit-car teams — garagistes — became their badge of honour.
Cooper never regained that advantage in the 1.5-litre and 3-litre eras. John Cooper sold to the Chipstead Motor Group in 1965, and the team withdrew after 1969.
Reference material used to compile and verify the Cooper Car Company lineage data on this page. GridXTrax is an independent fan archive; follow the links to check any figure at source.