58 replies to this topic

[mab01uk]

 

The original Cooper Twini at Goodwood 1963 - Photo: John Adams

 

(This new Photo also added to the Cooper A3/Kingston Bypass "Twini Accident Story" - See my Previous Post No. 18)

Edited by mab01uk, 06 May 2015 - 07:21 PM.

[mab01uk]

Save the Home of Cooper:-

https://www.kickstar...e-of-the-cooper

 

£1,200,000 by Thu, Jul 23 2015.....

Edited by mab01uk, 25 May 2015 - 10:35 PM.

[mab01uk]

From The Kingston Guardian:-
VIDEO: Save the home of the Mini Cooper campaign gears up
http://www.yourlocal...oves_up_a_gear/


From the video showing John Cooper testing his prototype on the Kingston Bypass in 1946.


Kyle Stanger said he was 'overwhelmed' with the support his campign has received


Historic: The former Cooper Car garage as it is today (top left) and during the glory day (right and bottom left)  

A teenager trying to raise a £1.2m to save a motoring landmark in Surbiton is hoping to get the building listed as a community asset.
Kyle Stanger, 18, has received support from across the world since he started the ‘Save the home of the Cooper’ campaign two weeks ago and is asking people to urge Kingston Council to list the TDV building in Hollyfield Road as a community interest.

Teenager begins drive to raise £1.2m to save birthplace of Cooper Car Company
Mr Stanger and his supporters have been gathering snapshots from the time when John Cooper and Formula 1 legend Sir Jack Brabham were building and testing Formula 1 cars there to strengthen their case.
Mr Stanger said: “I found out yesterday I need 21 people from the area to sign up to get the council to consider listing the building as of community interest but obviously the more people we get the better.”
Mr Stanger said he was "overwhelmed" with the amount of support he has received so far.
If he manages to get the council to list the building as of community interest he will have another six months to raise the money.
He said: “The support the campaign has received is amazing. Some people seem to be taking this on as a hobby. I’m getting so many great pieces of advice.

“The campaign has been shared by Ed China [presenter of Wheeler Dealers] on Facebook and I’ve had a conference call with Team Brabham Racing who crowd funded £250,000 for their racing team and they have given me lots of advice.”
Visit http://goo.gl/dEES0t to get the council to consider listing the TDV building as a community interest.

To donate to the Save the Home of the Cooper’ campaign visit https://goo.gl/BF146P

[mab01uk]

Red Wheel Unveiling - Surbiton - Sat 1st August 2015
Cooper Car Works was the birthplace of rear-engined Formula 1 racing cars and of the Mini-Cooper. Red Wheel #77 will be unveiled at 12:00 noon on the building at the corner of Hollyfield Road and Ewell Road between Surbiton and Tolworth. This was at one time the office of the Cooper Car Company (more recently a fish shop) before the more modern garage building was constructed behind it in the late 1950s to house Coopers' development works.
This event will be relatively low key with no display of cars but with active support from the Cooper Car Club. Parking has been arranged from 10:00 at the King Charles Centre, King Charles Avenue, at the further end of Hollyfield Road (KT5 9AL).

http://www.transport....com/10002.html

 

The Red Wheel scheme commemorates Britain's rich and globally important legacy in the development of transport and presents it to a new and wider audience. Some of our most significant heritage sites, eg. the Forth Bridge and Channel Tunnel, are household names but many more are currently little known and their importance unappreciated.

Drawing advice from local historians, industrial archaeologists and other experts, Transport Trust members are taking a closer look at Britain's transport heritage to determine sites of greatest significance. Whereas many plaque schemes commemorate famous individuals, Red Wheels principally highlight key locations of engineering and transport importance. Nominations are evaluated for their importance, rarity, public awareness and access/'something to see'. We may rank a 'hidden gem' higher than a site already nationally recognised. Most sites will be unique but a few are chosen as particularly good examples of an important category in the built environment. Exceptionally a Red Wheel may be awarded as a reminder to current and future generations of an important former use of a location which has since been obliterated.

Where can I find Red Wheels?
Red Wheel plaques were successfully pioneered in Derbyshire in 2009 and the programme is being rolled out across the country. To find out all about the sites selected to receive Red Wheel plaques search in our Heritage Directory (opens in a new window).

http://www.transport....com/10021.html

[mab01uk]

The MCR Forum says the unveiling has been brought forward to 11am today.

[mab01uk]

Many thanks to Mk1 Forum member (coop12g295) for sharing the photos below of yesterdays unveiling ceremony of the Red Wheel Plaque at the old Cooper Works in Surbiton.

 

 

Edited by mab01uk, 02 August 2015 - 11:21 AM.

[Mini-Hazel-Nut]

There`s hope for us yet. I`m quite moved.

[mab01uk]

A moment frozen in time as Cooper Car Co turn clock back to 1955 at Goodwood Revival:-

https://grrc.goodwoo...f4j7kse8rfD1.97

[mab01uk]

Another Cooper Garage site in Surbiton, Surrey is under threat of re-development:-
http://m.thisislocal...ad/?ref=mr&lp=9

Quote:
Protesters against a planned Sainsbury’s store in Berrylands, Surbiton claim a piece of the borough’s racing car history will be lost if the building goes ahead.
A planning application for the shop and five flats on the site of the petrol garage at 118 Raeburn Avenue has been submitted to Kingston Council.
But campaigners claimed the building should be protected because of its connection to the famous Cooper racing garage.
Car making legend John Cooper rented the garage in the late 1940s and started to build his racing empire there, before moving on to the famed Mini Cooper garage in Hollyfield Road.
Raeburn Avenue resident Peter Bell said: “The cars were tested up and down the road. These were not the Mini Cooper cars. These were big racing cars.
“Stirling Moss was spotted a few times testing the cars. “The building has a great history and it would be a real shame to lose it and see it demolished.”
The old Cooper garage in Hollyfield Road, often referred to as the birthplace of the Mini Cooper, is also up for sale.
Teenager Kyle Stanger received support from across the world when he started the Save the home of the Cooper campaign in May and urged the council to list the property as a community interest site.
A commemorative plaque was fixed to the Hollyfield Road building last month. The application by Kent-based company Kal-max Properties shows plans for a three storey building with a supermarket on the ground floor with provisions for car access, parking, and landscaping.
Agent Barry Kitcherside said: “All the information about the building and planning history is available on the [council] website.
“Residents can make comments about the application there.”
Comments on the proposal closed on October 16.
Visit kingston.gov.uk for more information.

[Mini-Hazel-Nut]

The above is also a fast disappearing aspect of our daily lives with a nod towards the art deco in its frontage. The deco Surbiton Lagoon, just up the road from Cooper`s, went many years ago for housing. There`ll be nothing at all left soon, all in the name of quick-cash. 

[mab01uk]

The Cooper Works Race Mini's lined up at Cooper Garage in Byfleet 1968 (Photo: Mike Cooper)



More photos here:-
https://www.facebook...opercarcompany/

Edited by mab01uk, 30 October 2016 - 09:30 AM.

[mab01uk]

The curved roof line in the scanned photo below confirms the inside photo above was also taken at the Cooper Garage in Canada Rd, Byfleet and not Surbiton.

"Six of the best outside the Cooper establishment" from Mini by Rob Golding

[scrumpix]

The Surbiton garage is now being used by a Porsche garage

[mab01uk]

The Listed Building Entry below says.....

Former Cooper Cars Company workshop and showroom - List Entry Summary
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Name: Former Cooper Cars Company workshop and showroom
List entry Number: 1429242
Location
Hollyfield Road, Surbiton, Surrey, KT5 9AL
Grade: II
Date first listed: 24-Sep-2015

Summary of Building
Sports car workshop and showroom. Built c1958 for Charles Cooper to the designs of Richard Maddock on the site of his earlier garage. Second-storey draughtsman’s office added c1960. From 1965 used as a police car depot/forensics laboratory.
Reasons for Designation
The former Cooper Car Company workshop and showroom, Hollyfield Road, Surbiton, built c1958 for Charles Cooper for the construction of Formula 1 racing cars, is recommended for listing at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Historical interest: for the role played by the Cooper Car Company in the development of the modern Formula 1 racing car, and the important role that it played in the history of British motor sport;
It would appear that all the cars from the Cooper 500 onward were built at the Hollyfield Road workshop, although a secondary site at Langley Road, Surbiton was purchased in the late 1950s. From 1961 John Cooper, in association with Alec Issigonis, designer of the British Motor Corporation (BMC) Mini, designed a series of sports versions of the car, the Mini Cooper. These were large scale production models and were built by BMC at Longbridge, Birmingham but their design is popularly associated with Hollyfield Road.
 * Architectural interest: for the early use of double-height, aluminium-framed glazing utilised in a dramatic curved frontage; * Rarity: very few purpose-built motor car workshops or showrooms survive from this period.

History
The site on Hollyfield Road was purchased by Charles Cooper in the 1920s. The plot was populated with a series of sheds which he used for his garage business; these are shown on the 1934 Ordnance Survey (OS) map. In the late-1930s a parade of shops was built along Ewell Road where the end shop (No 243) was leased by Charles Cooper as a showroom, with his family living in the flat above. By the time of the 1955 OS map the sheds had been cleared and a new garage built on the site. It is shown in a 1946 Pathé newsreel as a series of single-storey, pitched roofed workshops, stretching to the road in the north-west corner, with a yard to the south-west with three petrol pumps. The current building was designed by the architect Richard Maddock, father of Owen Maddock (1925-2000) who was the Cooper Car Company’s chief designer from the late 1950s until 1963. Richard Maddock had been employed by the practice of Sir Herbert Baker and worked on the rebuilding of the Bank of England (1925-39). The current building is shown in a photograph of 1958/9 around the time that it was built. Another photograph, dated 1963, shows the addition of a draughtsman’s office on the flat roof of the main two-storey range. In 1965 Cooper Cars relocated to Byfleet in Surrey and the garage was leased to the Metropolitan Police as a police car depot and subsequently as a forensics site. Some internal re-ordering was carried out, particularly on the ground floor of the office block. The police vacated the site in 2014.

Lots more detail on the site and building in the Historic England listing here:-
https://historicengl...t-entry/1429242

[mab01uk]

COOPER CAR COMPANY

Blue Plaque erected August 16th 2018 by English Heritage at Hollyfield Road, Surbiton, London KT5 9AL, Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames

http://www.english-h...per-car-company