Cooper F2

This car competed in the HSCC Pre '65 Historic Grand Prix Car Championship race at the HSCC's Spring Historic Race Meeting at Oulton Park in May 1986.

Shown in the programme of the event simply as a 1,460cc 1956 Cooper F2 it's finished in the Rob Walker colours of dark blue with a white noseband. The entrant is shown in the programme as Gerry Hann and the driver as Alan Miles.

Cooper records for the early F2 cars are not comprehensive, but if it's a 1956 car it should be a T41 and have a Coventry Climax FWB engine. Of the four T41s built in 1956 the first two were works cars, then one for Rob Walker and one for Ken Wharton. The works cars do not appear to have been given chassis numbers at that time, but it is believed that the Rob Walker car was F2-1-56 and Ken Wharton's F2-2-56. Two T41s were built in 1957 for New Zealand drivers to race in South Africa and numbered F2-1-57 and F2-2-57, and Gerry Hann's car is apparently supposed to be F2-2-57, although there is a suspicion that it should really be F2-1-56.

Here's the car during the race on what appears to be the pit straight.