1959 Cooper T51 & 1958 Lotus Eleven Le Mans

I took this photograph in the paddock at the Silverstone Historic Festival meeting in August 2001.

On the left is the 1959 Cooper T51 of David Cooke that he drove in the John Cooper Trophy Race for Pre 1966 Grand Prix and Tasman Cars. The T51 was a development of the Cooper T43 and and T45 cars for the 1959 F1 season and was usually powered by a 2½ litre Coventry Climax engine, though the programme of this events says that David Cooke's car had a 1,998cc engine. On the right is David Cooke's 1958 Lotus Eleven Le Mans with a 1,498cc engine. The Lotus Eleven was primarily designed to compete in the 1,100cc class of racing, but competed with a variety of engines ranging from 750cc to 1,500cc. The Lotus Eleven Le Mans differed from the standard Lotus Eleven in that it had a wider chassis frame in order to provide Le Mans regulation-width seats, and cockpit and footwell minimum dimensions, but the overall width of the bodywork was no different to the standard car.