Hoci je spravodlivé povedať, že Mike Hawthorn bol mužom, ktorý dostal malú značku Cooper na mapu Grand Prix a doviedol svoj obratný Cooper-Bristol na prvé miesto na stupňoch víťazov majstrovstiev sveta pre britského konštruktéra, bol to niekto iný, kto získal prvé body pre Cooper! Muž, ktorý mal zohrať dôležitú úlohu v zákulisí britského motoristického športu…
Alan Brown (Malton, Yorkshire, 20. novembra 1919) slúžil počas vojny pod vedením Normana Garrada. Garrad bol známym jazdcom rally, ktorý po vojne viedol veľmi úspešný továrenský tím Sunbeam-Talbot. Po vojne začal Brown pracovať pre Dennis Bros ako ich obchodný zástupca pre región Midlands. Počas tohto obdobia Alan predal desiatky nákladných vozidiel prostredníctvom prepravcu menom Bob Hamblin.
Niekedy v roku 1949 sa Brown a Hamblin dohodli, že minú nejaké peniaze a kúpia Cooper 500cc, aby s ním Alan Brown mohol pretekať. Hamblin zaplatil za auto, Alan kúpil motory, nákladné auto a príves a vyrazili. Brown začal svoju pretekársku kariéru druhým miestom v pretekoch do vrchu Great Auclum, opäť druhým v Luton Hoo a tretím vo svojich prvých cestných pretekoch v Blandforde. V tom čase už Brown jazdil v bezchybnej bledomodrej prilbe a overale, čo mu vynieslo prezývku „Chiron“ Brown podľa kultivovaného monackého šampióna Louisa Chirona.
Keďže v sezóne 1950 v britskej triede 500cc opäť dominoval Cooper, Alan Brown pokračoval v pretekoch so svojím vlastným modrým Cooperom. Havaroval s ním v Silverstone a požičal si náhradu pre Monaco (najcharizmatickejšie preteky roka v triede 500cc, ktoré sa konali na podporu Veľkej ceny F1), ale okamžite s ním havaroval v Tabacu, keď viedol druhú rozjazdu.
Počas toho roku sa spriatelil s Jimmym Richmondom, dodávateľom verejných prác a prepravy z Nottinghamshire, vo veku 27 rokov. Túžil sa zapojiť do pretekov, ale jeho váha 105 kg nebola pre Formulu 3 ideálna. Alan Brown presvedčil Richmonda, aby spolu v roku 1951 začali profesionálne pretekať. Z dnešného pohľadu to bol vynikajúci nápad.
Eric Brandon, Brownov priateľ a zároveň jazdec Cooperu, súhlasil s vytvorením dvojvozňového tímu s vozidlami Cooper s motormi a prevodovkami Norton. Jimmy Richmond poskytol nákladné auto na prepravu tímu a kúpil dva motory Norton s dvojitým klepaním. Všetky výdavky a akékoľvek zárobky z výhier alebo štartovných peňazí mali byť rozdelené na tri časti. Preteky Ecurie Richmond, ako sa neskôr začali volať, mali veľmi úspešný rok, ktorý zahŕňal 16 významných víťazstiev a 41 víťazstiev v ďalších rozjazdách a umiestnení na stupňoch víťazov. Eric Brandon vyhral novozavedený šampionát Autosport British 500cc Drivers’ Championship s dotáciou 200 libier a Alan Brown vyhral šampionát Half-Litre Club’s Championship aj Light Car Cup.
Brown, ktorý bol na ročnej dovolenke bez platu od Dennis Bros., pričom mal poistenie platené, aby sa mohol pustiť do profesionálnej kariéry, mal vynikajúcu sezónu, ktorej vrcholom bolo víťazstvo na Veľkej cene Luxemburska. V dôležitých pretekoch BRDC Gold Star skončil druhý za Mossom, zatiaľ čo Stirling sa vo Formule 3 predstavil len veľmi zriedkavo a so svojím novým Kieftom nasadzoval iba vo veľkých pretekoch (skôr na úľavu pre Cooperovu brigádu).
Koncom roka 1951 sa niektorí etablovaní zákazníci Cooperu chceli vyšplhať po rebríčku do triedy F2, ktorá mala v roku 1952 prevziať titul majstra sveta. Počas predchádzajúceho roka bola väčšina hlavných podujatí F3 úvodom k pretekom F2 – ako napríklad séria Grand Prix de France. Keďže sa štatút majstra sveta chystal uplatniť na Formulu 2 namiesto upadajúcej Formuly 1, ambície pretekov Grand Prix sa v tú zimu zrazu zdali byť dosiahnuteľné. Všetko, čo bolo potrebné, bolo cenovo dostupné a praktické auto F2 vhodné pre súkromného majiteľa.
A mimochodom, nebolo z čoho vyberať. Geoffrey Taylor, ktorý sídlil neďaleko Cooperu v Tolworthe, ponúkal svoj Alta F2S. Jeho motory dali Mossovi, Collinsovi a Lanceovi Macklinovi šancu v tíme HWM, ale autá Alta boli podľa povesti „ťažké“. HWM predalo svoje veľmi úspešné tímové autá z roku 1951, ale bolo plne odhodlané stavať si nové pre seba. Bolo tam aj nové Connaught Rodneyho Clarka zo Sendu, ktoré používalo motory na báze Lea Francis. Vyzeralo sľubne, ale bolo to neznáme množstvo.
S rýchlym nárastom záujmu o Formulu 2 Cooperovci čoskoro obrátili svoje myšlienky týmto smerom a netrvalo dlho a v ich katalógu sa objavil na predaj dvojlitrový Cooper bez prefúknutého motora…
John Cooper spomína: „Najlepším dostupným dvojlitrovým motorom bol šesťvalcový Bristol, ktorý vyrábala automobilová divízia spoločnosti Bristol Aeroplane Company vo Filtone neďaleko Bristolu. Bol založený na predvojnovom dizajne BMW 328, ktorý sme si vzali ako vojnové reparácie. S otcom sme išli za ľuďmi z Bristolu, George White bol generálnym riaditeľom, a spýtali sme sa ho, či by nám dovolil mať motor na vyskúšanie v prednej časti jedného z našich podvozkov. Povedal áno a čoskoro sme mali náš prototyp Cooper-Bristol v pohybe.“
Tento motor dosahoval výkon okolo 127 koní pri 5 800 otáčkach za minútu. Bolo známe, že je o 35 – 40 koní menej ako vtedajšie Ferrari a Maserati. Bol to dosť objemný a vysoký motor, ale Cooperovci si boli istí, že si poradí. Bol známy, bol dostupný vo veľkom množstve a diely boli ľahko dostupné. Mimochodom, mal by tiež tvoriť perfektný dvojlitrový motor pre športovo-pretekovú verziu. Cooper usúdil, že vytvorením čo najľahšieho praktického podvozku a vyhnutím sa komplikáciám by mohli kompenzovať nízky výkon motora Bristol. Nekomplikované auto tiež sľubovalo spoľahlivosť.
The result was the Cooper T20, also named Cooper-Bristol Mark I. The first prototype was shown to the Press at Hollyfield Road in January 1952 and then sold to Archie Bryde, but the next three cars were undoubtedly the most successful.
A young Mike Hawthorn at the wheel of a car bought by Bob Chase scored a phenomenal run of success in international racing that included fourth place in the Belgian Grand Prix, third in the British Grand Prix, fourth in the Dutch Grand Prix (results sufficient to give him fourth place in the World Championship) and four wins in British events. The T20 debut was sensational, with Hawthorn winning the six-lap Lavant Cup with Alan Brown and Eric Brandon following him home for a Cooper-Bristol 1-2-3 grand slam. Out again in the six-lap Formule Libre Chichester Cup, Mike won again, leading all the way. The day’s feature race was the 12-lap Richmond Trophy, including F1 cars, and Hawthorn actually led Gonzalez’s Thin Wall before it got into its stride and thundered ahead. Mike still finished second, 26 seconds behind, to complete his fantastic day. Alan Brown then won a Handicap race in his Richmond car, and one could conclude that the Cooper-Bristols had most sensationally arrived.
Both Alan Brown and Eric Brandon entered by Ecurie Richmond also enjoyed a good run of success in 1952. The Richmond cars were painted pale metallic green, Brandon’s with a red noseband, Brown’s pale blue. The Richmond boys set off on their continental tour with the Cooper-Bristols and 500s, and on 18 May the Swiss GP saw Alan Brown finish fifth and score Cooper’s first-ever World Championship points (our picture). Eric Brandon was eighth, despite leaving the road at one point: “A gasket had gone and I was just limping round to finish. I was looking round for Farina. He was an absolute thug with back-markers, and when I looked back to see where I was going I was charging off the road along a ditch!”
Brown followed his trend with two sixths, at the Monza Autodromo GP in June and the Belgian GP at Spa. The Italian GP at Monza saw Richmond running both cars again, alongside Hawthorn. All qualified well though slower than Stirling Moss’s Connaught. Back home, Alan Brown took a third at Goodwood in the closing meeting of the year.
Of course, the Richmond boys were always staggered by Chase car’s speed compared to their own. “On the rare occasions we saw it back at Cooper’s we’d crawl all over it, open the filler cap, sniff the tank and look in the carbs, but the tanks were always cleaned-out and they’d taken the jets out of the carburettors… It was only later we found they really had been using nitromethane…”
So Cooper’s first serious season of Formula 2 racing yielded the marque’s first World Championship points, brilliant results for Mike and Leslie Hawthorn, rather less so for the other customers. But it was obvious that the Mark I recipe offered a light, good-handling platform for more powerful engines.
While the composite box-and-tube section Cooper-Bristol Mark I were making their name during 1952, the all-tubular Mark VI 500s had been very successful, easy to build and profitable. Clearly their simple all tubular frame was the way to go, and during the autumn Owen Maddock laid out such a chassis for the coming season’s Mark II T23 F2 car.
The prototype Mark II was displayed at the 1952 London Motor Show in October. It was impeccably prepared, standing on a special display of Britain’s new F2 cars, and was finished in bright mid-green. Its lighter tubular frame was obviously the most important new feature.
Into the winter of 1952-53, the Argentine Club was offering good terms to attract entries for its Grand Prix in Buenos Aires, opening the 1953 World Championship series.
Alan Brown had by then opted-out of Ecurie Richmond and Dennis Bros to join Bob Chase as Manager, Car Division and Motor Racing Department, and he entered his Mark I for the Argentina races. The association with Bob Chase created the Ecurie Anglaise, name under which Brown would race himself during 1953.
In the Argentinian Grand Prix itself, Farina’s works Ferrari ploughed into the uncontrolled crowds, killing many spectators. Alan Brown was unable to avoid a young spectator running into his path, but continued with the nose of his Mark I stove in. After three stops to top up the leaking radiator he finished ninth and last. Brown also contested the Buenos Aires City Libre GP, in which he retired.
At Easter Goodwood the Bob Chase/Alan Brown Equipe Anglaise Mark II-Alfa Romeo appeared with its de Dion rear end and Ferrari-like bodywork, to be driven by Paul Emery. In the British GP at Silverstone Alan Brown himself appeared in a new Mark II-Bristol. It had been ordered originally by Belfast Telegraph newspaper proprietor Bobby Baird for himself and Roy Salvadori. Baird already had a Ferrari and the Cooper-Bristol would seem entirely superfluous in such company.
Alan Brown had tried to race the Cooper-Alfa Romeo one last time at Crystal Palace but was stranded on the starting grid. So for the German GP at Nürburgring the de Dion car was fitted with a Bristol engine in place of the troublesome Alfa Romeo, and sprayed silver for Porsche star Helm Glocklen to drive. He nodded the new engine in practice and could not start. Brown charged hard there in his new Mark II, fought against horrific handling when a spring anchorage parted, but had his engine blow half-a-lap from the finish. Brown loaned the car to American driver John Fitch for Aix-les-Bains, but neither was on form. In the Italian GP at Monza Alan was outpaced, of course, but survived reliably to finish 12th.
Whilst Alan Brown was racing for Bob Chase’s Equipe Anglaise with his own MkI Cooper-Bristol Formula 2 car in 1953, the MkI raced by Hawthorn for Chase in 1952 was surplus to requirements. Brown conceived the idea of converting it to a sports car. That was the start of a story that would produce a series of conversions from the Cooper T20 single-seaters to a total of six sports/racing cars.
This first one was modified by Bernie Rodger during the winter of 1952-53, emerging as Barchetta-bodied sports racing car, its registration being HPN 665. A cage framework was welded up to carry the body which was built by Wakefield’s of Byfleet, a firm very well known for sports/racing car bodies in the 1950s.
Alan Brown is on record as saying that Wakefield’s were instructed to build a body of the “Barchetta” style as fitted to Davis’s Cooper-MG. In fact what emerged was a body almost identical to the 1952 Vignale-bodied Le Mans Tipo 340 Ferraris, complete with the same “portholes” in the front wings and rubbing strips linking front and rear wheel arches. The car was shown to the press in March 1953 and at that stage it was stated that it would be raced with an Aston Martin 2.6-litre engine and that a second car with hard top was being built by the works for Ken Wharton to race.
In fact the Chase Cooper appeared for the first time at the Members’ meeting at Goodwood later in March 1953 with a Formula 2 Bristol engine, with lowered compression ratio and running on 100 octane fuel, and it remained in this form for a couple of years. Alan Brown enjoyed a superb run of success with this car, finishing eighth and winning his class in the Production Sports car race at Silverstone in May (at this time the BRDC had some very odd ideas as to what constituted a production car), and with Michael Currie as co-driver took seventh place and a class second in the 1953 Goodwood Nine Hours race.
With Faraoni as co-driver, they entered the Nürburgring 1000 Kms finishing in 16th place. In 1954 Brown driving this car won outright the handicap British Empire Trophy at Oulton Park and took a class win at Zandvoort in August. Let’s also recall that Ecurie Anglaise started the season with a T20 Mark I ex-Richmond (the one that Brown raced in Argentina) and the new Mark II T23 with the Alfa engine. Later during 1953 they acquired the MkII Formula 2 Cooper-Bristol delivered to Bobbie Baird, as we mentioned above, so Brown’s own MkI (probably chassis CB/2/52) also became surplus to requirements. He and Rodger promptly rebuilt it as another Vignale-styled sports/racing car.
In early 1954 this car was bought by David Watts, who used it to break the hill record at Trengwaiton in Devon and sold it very shortly afterwards to Tom Kyffin, who in 1955 raced both this car and the ex-Horace Gould Mk II Formula 2 car under the banner of Equipe Devone.
As far as Brown’s Formula One season during 1954 is concerned, it started in April on the Lavant Cup, at the wheel of his T23 from the previous year. But for the International Trophy in May, Brown had been contacted by Tony Vandervell to give its debut to the 2-litre Vanwall 01. Brown drove steadily in appallingly wet weather conditions in the first heat to finish sixth and became the first Formula 2 car home. In the final, however, he retired because of a broken oil pipe.
In July Brown again drove the Richmond car at Rouen, but only in practice, as he did not start the race. Similar fate happened in Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. The car was simply too slow – and Brown was 7 seconds slower than Brandon anyway – so he did not take the start. In August he qualified on the second row for the International Gold Cup but by mid-race the fuel pump decided that his race was over and that was all. At this stage in his career, Brown was being successful in the British sportscar series, so he was bit by bit leaving his single-seater entries aside. He still drove Gibson’s Connaught A4 at the International Trophy in 1955, being forced to retire to transmission problems. That was going to be his last appearance as a single-seater driver.
In 1956, his last season of racing, he drove a Jaguar D-Type. He then went on, in 1958-’59, to enter Formula 2 Coopers under the Alan Brown Equipe, giving rides to many aspiring racers. Interestingly, it seems that for this enterprise Alan Brown and his business partner Cecil Libowitz (the two running a local concern named Weyside Engineering) joined forces with a little known driver called Ken Tyrrell and together they bought two F2s. Drivers for the season included such luminaries as Hernando da Silva Ramos, Claude Storez, Mike and Dennis Taylor, Norman Barclay, Andre Guelfi, Innes Ireland, Ken Tyrrell himself, Bruce Kessler and a certain Jean Claude Vidilles.
In 1959 Brown and Tyrrell proceeded to put some classy driving hands in their Coopers. At the start of the year works Cooper drivers McLaren and Gregory drove Cooper T45s at the Goodwood Lavant Cup, then Mike Taylor taking over from Masten at Oulton Park with Peter Ashdown replacing Bruce at Aintree. Gregory then came back to the Alan Brown Equipe at Syracuse and before Bruce rejoined at Pau and Rouen. Taylor and Ashdown drove at Aintree in the GP support race, with Masten and Bruce again at Clermont, then Ashdown in place of Masten at Brands Hatch – and so it goes on.
V roku 1960 sa Brown a Tyrrell rozišli, keď Brown nasadil Rona Flockharta v jeho Coopere 45 v Syracuse a neskôr aj do niektorých pretekov F2. Ken Tyrrell, teraz nezávislý účastník F2, využil príležitosť a nalákal Johna Surteesa k pretekom na štyroch kolesách. V auguste, keď sa Formula 2 blížila ku koncu svojej štvorročnej existencie počas víkendu Veľkej ceny Talianska, Alan Brown ponúkol svoje auto ako náhradné Jackovi Lewisovi (ktorý vyhral v Monze, ale nie v Brownovom aute), zatiaľ čo Flockhart sedí za volantom auta F2 s názvom Emeryson 1000…
V tomto bode sa Brownove aktivity prepletali s aktivitami dvoch ďalších pozoruhodných osobností britského motoristického športu: Rodneyho Clarka a Paula Emeryho. Je ťažké zrekonštruovať udalosti rokov 1957-58 po tom, čo Clarkova továreň v Connaughte definitívne skrachovala. Keďže Veľká cena Monaka 1957 bola jeho poslednou účasťou v šampionáte, sériové vozidlá Connaught boli v októbri dané do aukcie. Jeden BC Ecclestone získal dva vozidlá typu B a bohaté vybavenie pretekárskeho tímu, aby mohol s nimi začať pretekať v sezóne 1958. Alan Brown sa stal majiteľom spoločnosti Connaught Cars Ltd a závodu v Sende. Po obnovení spoločnosti pod názvom Connaught Cars (1959) Ltd Brown premenil Connaught na autoservis. Nakoniec bol mŕtvo narodený model typu C stiahnutý z aukcie a predaný Paulovi Emerymu, sebestrednej osobnosti britskej motoristickej scény, ktorý bol zodpovedný za vytvorenie množstva dosť zvláštnych pretekárskych áut vyrobených s obmedzeným rozpočtom.
Vo svojej malej dielni v Twickenhame Emery sám postavil Connaught C-type a nasadil ho za Boba Saida na Veľkú cenu USA v roku 1959. Emeryho spojenie s Connaught muselo Browna zaujať. V roku 1960 Emery s financovaním od Browna založil spoločnosť Emeryson Cars Ltd a mohol sa presťahovať z Twickenhamu do spoločnosti Connaught Cars (1959) Ltd na Portsmouth Road v Sende, neďaleko Ripley v Surrey. Brown potom nariadil Emerymu, aby navrhol flotilu áut F1 a FJ na jednej platforme. Mal to byť neslávne známy Emeryson 1000 z rokov 1960-61, ktorého biedny osud bol zverený do rúk Ecurie Nationale Belge. Ale to je príbeh, ktorý bol spracovaný inde.
