2.5-Liter Coventry-Climax Inline 4-Cylinder Engine
180bhp
5-Speed Cooper-Knight C5S Gearbox with Reverse
Spaceframe chassis construction
4-Wheel Girling Disc Brakes

*Evocative early 1960s Formula 1 car
*Other 'Lowline' drivers include World Champions Brabham and Surtees, Bandini and McLaren!
*Formula 1 World Championship-winning design
*From the zenith of this legendary marque's history
*As campaigned in Formula 1, Tasman and InterContinental racing

THE MOTORCAR OFFERED

This very well presented, beautifully restored and well-preserved 1961 Formula 1/Formula 2 dual-purpose Cooper-Climax is recorded in the surviving Cooper Car Company Ltd chassis register as the eighth of that year's Type 53P – for 'Production' – cars constructed.

Following the success of the 1959 Type 51 Cooper-Climax in winning both the Formula 1 Constructors' World Championship title for its manufacturer, and the Formula 1 Drivers' World Championship title for the works team's No 1 star Jack Brabham, the company's chief designer Owen Maddock sat down with 'Black Jack' and John Cooper to devise a replacement car for the 1960 season.

The car they envisaged would be somewhat more sophisticated than the Type 51, with the driver seated lower in flatter-profile multi-tubular chassis frame. The appearance of the rival new rear-engined Lotus 18 in the 1960 Argentine Grand Prix really accelerated Cooper development of this new design. When Jack Brabham and John Cooper returned to London on March 17 they immediately began work on the new car to match Lotus's finest. The first prototype Typ 53 would be ready and racing by May 14 that year – and it earned the nickname of 'the Lowline Cooper.

In the works team Type 53 'Lowline' cars Jack Brabham and his talented number 2, Bruce McLaren, would prove to be the class of the 1960 Formula 1 field. Jack went on to win the year's Dutch, Belgian, French British and Portuguese Grand Prix races – the first four in unbroken succession – to clinch the second consecutive Drivers' World Championship title for himself and the Constructors' crown for the Cooper Car Company.

Into 1961 the Formula 1 technical regulations changed. The former 2.5-liter engine capacity ceiling was slashed down to just 1.5-liters, and for the new year Cooper produced svelte little Type 55 works team cars for Brabham and McLaren, while offering its many customers the parallel Type 53P 'Lowline' as now offered here.

This particular car was supplied new from the Hollyfield Road, Surbiton, Surrey factory to French garagiste and private owner/driver Bernard Collomb. It was completed and collected by him in April 1961 – originally fitted with Coventry Climax FPF 4-cylinder engine 'No 430/26/1189'. He made an early appearance in the French-blue car on April 16, 1961 in the non-Championship Vienna Grand Prix, run on the Aspern aerodrome circuit just outside the Austrian capital. And there he immediately finished 3rd, returning to his French base in considerable triumph with a trophy, a podium wreath and satisfying start and prize money...

The very next weekend saw him racing again in the non-Championship Aintree '200' event at Liverpool, England. Jack Brabham won there and set fastest race lap in his brand-new works Cooper T55, but for Collomb in his T53 there was little luck and he failed to finish.

On May 14 Bernard Collomb drove his car home 6th in the non-Championship Naples GP on the tortuous Possilippo street circuit in Italy. The Crystal Palace parkland course in London, England, then saw Collomb take 9th place in the following weekend's London Trophy race.

He retired from the Silver City Trophy at Brands Hatch, England, on June 3, then from the World Championship-qualifying French GP at Reims-Gueux on July 2. He started the gruelling German GP at the Nürburgring on August 6 only to strike myriad problems which left him too far behind to be classified at race finish, and thereafter confined himself to a few local events in France.

Early in 1962 Bernard Collomb entered his Cooper 'Lowline' for the non-Championship Brussels Grand Prix around a street and autoroute circuit close beneath the shadow of the Belgian capital's mighty Atomium structure. However, during practice he had a minor incident during which a fuel pipe was dragged loose or a fuel tank punctured. The leaking fuel ignited and a furious fire broke out. Bernard Collomb was able to scramble clear, but the fire burned for some considerable time before the untrained marshals succeeded in quelling the flames.

The car was damaged beyond immediate economical repair and its remains were sold reputedly to a Swiss dealer/enthusiast who began to rebuild it as a special, supposedly for mountain-climb competition, against the clock. The car passed subsequently through the Swiss trade and was eventually reconstructed and restored to its original Formula 1 racing form by expert British specialist and Historic racing star John Harper.

The car has since enjoyed a long and successful career within Historic and Vintage racing circles. Upon close and detailed inspection it certainly has many surviving original features which are a tribute to the skill with which it was rescued from near oblivion in the 1960s.

As offered now it is powered by a Coventry-Climax FPF engine and again it is a rear-engined Grand Prix car which would grace any discriminating connoisseur's race car collection.