1959 Cooper T51 Maserati

This was one of the competitors in the Pre '61 Grand Prix Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1995.

It's the 1959 Cooper T51 Maserati of the late Steve O'Rourke, better known as manager of Pink Floyd. The car is chassis F2/16/59 and was originally supplied with a Coventry Climax 2 litre engine to an Australian customer. After several owners in Australia it went to the USA and then in 1990 to Steve O'Rourke who had a 2 litre Maserati engine fitted.

Cooper Maserati

I took this photograph in the paddock at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2007.

The programme of the event says that number 7 in the HGPCA Pre-'66 GP Cars race is the 1959 Cooper T51 of Nick Wigley with a 2½ litre engine and is entered in the Tasman & Intercontinental Class. I can't find anything that says Nick Wigley had a Cooper Maserati, and the Cooper T51 he's generally pictured driving is an ex-Rob Walker car. It's not the first time I've taken a photograph of an unidentified Cooper Maserati at Donington Park - on 19 November 2016 I showed one that I'd photographed at the VSCC's 2001 meeting which looks to be a different car to the one above.

Cooper T51 Maserati

I took this photograph in the paddock at the VSCC's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Donington Park in May 2001.

It's not listed in the programme of the event and didn't take part in any of the races, but it's a 1959 Cooper T51 Maserati. It looks as if it's one of the cars campaigned by Guglielmo Dei's Scuderia Centro Sud in 1959 and 1960. Hans Herrmann drove one in the 1959 British Grand Prix at Aintree.

Maserati 250F

This is another of those Kodak Brownie 127 camera photographs, this time from the British Grand Prix at Aintree in July 1959.

It's Fritz d'Orey's Scuderia Centro Sud 1954 Maserati 250F, chassis number 2515, that he qualified in a lowly 20th place on the grid and failed to finish the race due to an accident on lap 57. Car number 24 next to it is another Scuderia Centro Sud car, the rear-engined Cooper T51 Maserati of Hans Herrmann who also failed to finish. The Maserati 250F was a remarkable car, several competing in the 1954 Argentine Grand Prix, the first race of the 2½ litre Formula, and the last race of the 2½ litre Formula, the 1960 United States Grand Prix, included a 250F in the hands of the American Bob Drake. Fritz d'Orey was the driver who drove the 1958 Tec-Mec Maserati in its only Grand Prix race, the 1959 United States Grand Prix.