Another Mk2 Cooper one

[hodsonaj]

Hello - some help please from you knowledgeable folks

I have just acquired a Mk 2 Cooper from Ewan Cameron. This is Chassis No 20 so presumably formed part of a second batch after the Kenya car talked about earlier. It appears to be in remarkably original condition although in bits. Its last appearance in anger seems to have been at Wiscombe in 1962 when it was owned and presumably driven by R D (Bob) West. Ewan bought the car in 1997 from Mr West who was then in his 80s so I suppose it is unlikely he has survived.

Can anyone shed any light on him or the car's history please

[HiRich]

Hi there,
Richard (rbm from the other thread) and I (my brother runs the 500OA website) have been doing a lot of stuff off-line to build up the definitive history of the MkIIs (and T2/T3). You've probably realised that the chassis history is very poor, and we're trying to piece together all of the random reports and facts (before we even attempt to make sense of them).
So far we are only aware of thirteen original owners - eleven of them definitely from the first dozen. So with a chassis number of 20, we can only assume that your car was part of the second dozen all supposedly due for export (look up the Iota magazine article at www.500race.org under Marques/Cooper/Mk II), although we suspect at least one never made it to the ferry. And unfortunately (with one possible exception for Lex Beels in Holland, which was probably a Mk III), we have no information at all on these exported cars.
- None appeared to go to Germany (East or West)
- Whilst Scandinavian events were taking place, I've got no records
- Similarly, whilst there may have been suitable events in Holland and Belgium (and possibly France), I haven't turned up any information until the Zandvoort Grand Prix race in 1949.
So I would be grateful if anyone has anything they can supply on that front.

Some other facts you could drop in:
- Is it a 500 chassis, or stretched for 1,000?
- Do you have any information on original colour or features?

Rich

[hodsonaj]

Rich
Thanks for that. I had thought that ours was meant for export having read the Iota article you mention.

The car is not a stretched chassis and seems always to have been a 500 - the chassis plate reads 5/20/48. Some updating was done in period ie it now has a steering rack rather than a box and the rear shock absorber mounting has been modified. There is also an LSD. There are also mirrors in little housings either side of the screen

As to colour, it was red when acquired by Ewan and although he has stripped most of it back to bare metal some still remains. This appears to be the only colour layer so unless it had a bare metal respray (!) at some time we are assuming it has always been so.
Tony Hodson

[rbm]

Hi Tony,

So now there are 3 !!

there are pictures of our mk2 at www.bishopmiller.co.uk

Both Tim Sage and myself are putting mk2's back together (mine is no 10 and his 16) and are both on a steep learning curve as it seams the mk3 are quite diffrent, so are having to dig up information as we go (with HiRich as the archivist )

cheers Richard