1962 Cooper Climax T60

This is  photograph I took at the Donington Park Museum in October 1989.

It's the Cooper Climax T60, chassis F1-17-61, that was introduced in 1962 and was driven by Bruce McLaren and Tony Maggs that season. The book 'Great Racing Cars of the Donington Collection' says this about the car:

When Cooper's V8 won

McLaren's Monaco success

3 June 1962 saw the Monaco Grand Prix run around the tortuous street circuit of Monte Carlo. The race began with a terrific multiple pile-up on the first corner, and from the seventh lap Graham Hill led in his new BRM V8. After ninety laps around this gruelling course the BRM began to sicken, and three laps later Hill retired and surrendered a 48-second lead to Bruce McLaren's reliable Cooper-Climax V8.

The popular New Zealander paced himself to the finish to win by 1.3 seconds from the reigning World Champion Phil Hill's Ferrari V6, and as the chequered flag signalled him home it heralded Cooper's last Championship race win for nearly five years.

Once Lotus, Ferrari, BRM and the other major teams had become converted to building their racing cars with the engines behind the driver, Cooper found it more and more difficult to hold their own. Their cars were solid, safe and workmanlike, but as the advantage moved - particularly to Lotus - so Cooper found themselves more and more out on a limb. No longer did they receive the best engines, the best attention or backing, and after Bruce McLaren scored a win in the non-Championship Marne Grand Prix at Reims in mid 1962 the remainder of the 1½ litre Formula saw a long hard drought for the former double-World Champion team.

Bruce's car in this last unsuccessful season was the Cooper T60, perhaps the most handsome Grand Prix car ever produced by the Surbiton firm. It suffered some failures in its Cooper-Knight six-speed gearbox, but McLaren was third in the year's World Championship and team-mate Tony Maggs was seventh. Bruce's Monaco winner was raced by the private Bob Gerard team in 1964-65, after which it joined the Wheatcroft stable.

Cooper Climax T60

I took this photograph on the Friday practice day for the British Grand Prix at Aintree in July 1962.

It's Bruce McLaren in his Cooper Climax T60 making his way from the paddock to the circuit for a practice run. The T60, in common with the major British racing teams, had the 1,494cc Coventry Climax V8 FWMV unit, the private entrants having to use the older 4-cylinder Coventry Climax FPF engine.

Here's the car approaching Waterway Corner during practice. Bruce McLaren qualified in fourth position on the grid, and finished the race in third place behind Jim Clark's Lotus 25 and the Lola Mk4 of John Surtees.

Bruce McLaren

1962 was the last of five occasions on which the British Grand Prix was held at Aintree and I was fortunate enough to see each of those races. On the last two occasions I had left school and was therefore able to take a day off work on the Friday of the race and go to Aintree to watch the practice sessions. The photograph below was taken at the Friday practice for the 1962 event and shows Bruce McLaren in the paddock in his Cooper-Climax T60 on his way to the pits at the start of a practice session.

Bruce McLaren qualified in fourth position on the grid and finished third in the race behind the winner Jim Clark in a Lotus-Climax 25 and John Surtees in a Lola-Climax Mk4.