1959 Cooper Monaco

This is a photograph that I took in the paddock at the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in August 2002.

It's the 1959 Cooper Monaco that Frank Sytner drove in the BRDC Historic Sportscar Championship race, and the photo was obviously taken early in the day as the race number (1) hadn't yet been painted on the car. The Cooper Monaco, also known as the T49, was powered by engines ranging from 1,100cc to 2,000cc and this one has a 4-cylinder inline 1,960cc Coventry Climax engine. The name 'Monaco' was given to the car to mark Maurice Trintignant's win in the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix in a Cooper Climax T45. It was the successor to the smaller centre-seat Cooper T39 'Bobtail' that the company had produced since 1954. This undated history of the car was produced by william i’anson ltd when the car came up for auction, presumably in 2020.