Cooper T56

Cooper T56

1961 Mk2.

Original Specification.

Wheelbase   7’ 5”
Track          4’ front, 3’11” rear.
Engine       BMC-XSP.  64.4mm bore x 76.2mm stroke, capacity 994cc.
Wet sump. Twin S.U. or Single twin-choke Weber carburettor.
Gearbox    Renault 4 speed, or at optional extra cost
Citroen-ERSA 4/5 speed with 3 pairs of quick-change
alternative ratio final drive drop gears.
Sliding spline drive shafts.
Wheels     13” cast magnesium.
Brakes       8” radial fin cast magnesium drums.
Hydraulic twin leading shoe.

The second Cooper Formula Junior

This second Formula Junior was designed to closely resemble the contemporary F1 model and the now predominantly straight tube chassis, just 2 inches shorter wheelbase than the F1 car, was clothed in a fibreglass body with a long nose & high tail fin and was the first Cooper to use 13” wheels. The final development & set up was overseen & tested by works GP driver Bruce McLaren.
Suspension was coil springs & wishbones all round, retaining the previous uprights but now with brake drums separate from the wheels.
BMC continued as the standard engine but some Ford Cosworths were fitted which had become available in 1098cc capacity and dry sump.
Walt Hansgen was victorious in the models’ very first race, actually in November 1960, at Riverside, California in the prototype.
Ricardo Rodriguez then won with this car in Mexico City, following which it featured in a motor racing B movie film, in which Ricardo was lead actor and the car was painted in Pepsi-Cola colours complete with large bottle top logos.
Future World Champion, New Zealander Denis Hulme raced a Mk2 several times and eventually won with his car Pescara.
Nearer home, Tony Maggs and John Love were hugely successful, finishing 1st & 2nd together for the Works Team in over a dozen European races, sharing the laurels roughly equally and even staging a dead heat once at Montlhery, with Maggs winning the European FJ Championship.
The Midland Racing Partnership team fielded up to five of this model and John Rhodes won a great many of the UK races for them. He went on to race Grand Prix Coopers and acquired the title “Smoking” Rhodes when he raced Mini-Coopers to equally good effect.
On the strength of all this success the famous film actor and motorcycle racer Steve McQueen bought one of the works team cars at the end of the year.
Thirty two cars are known to survive including Works Team cars, MRP cars and the Hansgen/Rodriguez car.

1961 Cooper Mk2 Formula Junior T56

FJ/21/61

Engine > Ford Cosworth Mk4 dry sump, 2 valves per cylinder,
bore 85mm x stroke 48mm, 1098cc, A6 camshaft, 9.0krpm, 110bhp.
Transmission > Inverted VW transaxle, 4 speed close ratio gear cluster.
Brakes > 8”dia x 1 ½”wide, iron lined cast magnesium drums.
Wheelbase 89”, Track 48”, Weight 412kg.

This car was originally one of the Cooper Works Team cars run by Ken Tyrrell, which were raced by John Love and Tony Maggs for the 1961 Formula Junior Championship season ~ won jointly by Maggs.

In September 1961 the car was sold to Frenchman, Robert Bouharde and given chassis number FJ/21/61 by the works, for export purposes.
Bouharde raced the car extensively until Formula Junior ceased at the end of 1963, including winning the 1962 Coupe de Paris at Montlhery.

In 1966 the original BMC engine was changed for a Ford and for 10 yrs was used for Sand Races, Hill Climbs & Sprints in Jersey, Channel Isles.
Brian Moody won the 1967 Sand Racing Championship, Ching Trophy.

A major restoration in 1978 included refitting a BMC engine, which survived until a catastrophic blow up in 1988 when the present Ford engine was fitted and the original gearbox was replaced by the VW.

Some notable former owners include Tico Martini of Formula 1 fame and Roy Lane the British Hill Climb Champion.

The car has been actively competitive for almost every year of its existence being campaigned all over Europe and also North Africa.
The present owner enjoys continuing this fine tradition with mostly Historic Racing Championships, Hill Climbs and Sprints.

The car is presented in the French period livery of Robert Bouharde.

Cooper T56 – Crispian Besley

Serial  #MOWDG405

This car was originally one of the three Cooper BMC Works Team cars run by Ken Tyrrell.
It was raced by both John Love and Tony Maggs* for the 1961 Formula Junior Championship season and they were hugely successful, finishing 1st & 2nd together for the Works Team in over a dozen European races, sharing the laurels roughly equally and even staging a dead heat once at Montlhery.
Tony Maggs took eight wins, including Goodwood, Magny-Cours, Monza, Karlskoga, Zandvoort, Oulton Park and Monthlery and went on to win the European Formula Junior Championship. ~ won jointly with Jo Siffert
The car was sold to an Australian buyer by David Rishworth in 1979 and later to the Valdez collection in the US from which I bought it in 2008.
I re-imported it into the UK early in 2009 and finding it completely unraceworthy had it recommissioned.I then debuted it at the John Taylor trophy race at Mallory Park and winning the class by 6 hundredth’s of a second as the engine was in the process of letting go !
*Maggs and  Love both went on to compete in contemporary F1:
The son of a wealthy farmer/businessman, Maggs shot to prominence in Formula Junior and was invited into the works Cooper Formula 1 team for 1962 and 63, partnering Bruce Mclaren and finishing second in the French Grand Prix of both years. Maggs was dropped at the end of ’63 in favour of former World Champion Phil Hill,
John Love came very close to becoming the first African driver to win a World Championship Grand Prix in 1967 when driving an ex- Bruce Mclaren Cooper in the South African Grand Prix at Kylami.Love had been a leading local driver for many years and at 42 was relatively old for a Grand Prix driver. Eighteen months earlier he had acquired Cooper T79 with a Climax  four-cylinder engine, which Bruce McLaren had raced in the 1965 Tasman series, winning the Australian GP at Longford.