Two Coopers

This photograph was taken at Donington Park at the SeeRed meeting in September 2005.

On the left is the 1958 Cooper T45 of Bill Kirkpatrick that competed in the Ron Flockhart Memorial Trophy race. The Cooper T45 was derived from the T43 of 1957 that had competed in Grand Prix racing in that year with a 2 litre Coventry Climax engine, but in 1958 the T45 was on equal standing with the other Formula One teams with a 2½ litre unit. Rob Walker's rear-engined 2½ litre Cooper Climax T45 was good enough to win the first two races of the season, the Argentine Grand Prix (Stirling Moss) and the Monaco Grand Prix (Maurice Trintignant), and although Mike Hawthorn with his Ferrari 246 Dino won the World Drivers' Championship that was the last one to be won by a front-engined car. Bill Kirkpatrick's car at Donington Park had a 1,960cc engine. The car next to it is Brian Joliffe's 1955 Cooper T39 Bobtail with a 1,460cc Coventry Climax FWB engine. The T39 was raced in the popular 1½ litre class in sports car races in the mid-1950s, competing against the Lotus Eleven, Maserati 150S, Porsche 550 and others.