1961 Cooper T53

This was one of the competitors in the HGPCA Pre-1966 Grand Prix Cars Race at the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in August 2002.

It's a 1961 Cooper T53 with a 1½ litre engine and was driven in the race by Ted Rollason. The T53 was a 'lowline' version of the Cooper T51 and this car, chassis F1-1-61, was driven for the Yeoman Credit Racing Team in 1961 by John Surtees. At the end of that season it was taken to South Africa for Tony Maggs to compete in the South African Springbok series after which it was sold to a Rhodesian driver, a Mr Kilner and was fitted with an Alfa Romeo engine in place of its Coventry Climax unit. It was raced in South Africa and Rhodesia until 1967 when it was involved in an accident at Kyalami when being driven by another Rhodesian driver, John Coetzer, and was totally wrecked. The remains were some years later acquired by John Harper who fabricated a new frame and rebuilt the car. Ted Rollason bought the car in 2001 and competed with it that year and the following year, eventually selling the car in 2014 to German driver Wulf Goetze who continued to race the car after an intensive overhaul.