35 replies to this topic

[CMXCVIII]

Do you remember the Datsun 240Z which I used to navigate for Kevin Videan who was a great friend of Nigel Rockey?

Oh yes, Grandad! I remember the Old Woking Service Station Datsun! And I know what you personally won with it!

I know the yoof here like your stories but here’s an[other] opportunity to big up Uncle Cooperman!

When I joined here and read those stories and worked out who he was, I Googled him and I hadn’t realised that Uncle Cooperman was Motoring News Champion navigator on British road rallies one year when it was arguably the hardest thing in the world to win!

He wasn’t like the sort of sack of potatoes who sits with a driver in a stage rally car. I’d suggest it was even past the guys you hear reading pace notes on the WRC!

It was out and out road racing [no matter what he might say now!], that was totally in the control of the navigator and determined and organised by him plotting the route and reading bends off a marked map and not making a mistake from one year to the next … and probably having his own special pace notes too!

Top drawer, world class stuff that meant that any of the top competitors could step straight into navigating works rally cars!

[Black.Ghost]

This reacquaintance will hopefully produce many many more stories of various driving antics.

Cooperman, forgive my ignorance but it seems like you may have been quite well known in the 60s. Was there any interesting press coverage of any of your achievements either online or that you have and could scan?

[Cooperman]

It was just for fun as far as I was concerned, although mention of the Old Woking/Works Datsun 240Z does evoke some great memories. I was lucky to meet and am still friends with a lot of the personalties from that era and we meet up every year or so for laughter and a drink (or two). Also I had the priviledge of navigating for some of the fastest British drivers of the era like Tony Pond, Andy Dawson, Kevin Videan, Chris Sclater and some others and I did learn about total commitment driving from them.
To get an idea of what it was like get a copy of Peter Robinson's book 'Memory Lanes Revisited'. Lots of Mini photos plus other stuff which will bring the events alive for the reader. You can order from Don Barrow via his web site - just Google it.
The biggest bit of publicity I ever got was when I was co-driving Chris Sclater on the 1969 Scottish Rally and whilst lying 2nd in our ex-works Lotus Cortina we went off the edge of a mountain, 4 times end-over-end and about 60 ft down. The Scottish Daily Express had a back page headline "Leading Rally Crew in Miracle Escape". We went to the bar - needed a drink after that!
That's why I do enjoy historic rallying in Minis, etc., and I also enjoy building them. However, after all those years, one of the most satisfying things ever was to win a National Historic Rally in a Cooper 'S' with my son in a car we had restored and prepared ourselves - it doesn't get much better than that.
If anyone is interested I can scan in a non-Mini photo or two of some old rally stuff.
Funnily enough, my old Datsun buddy, Kevin Videan, phoned this morning for a chat. He does a bit of dealing on classic cars and he just sold a 1960 Mini 850 with just a few thousand miles on the clock for a small fortune. He was a most amusing guy to navigate for and totally wild. We made a good pair, or so I'm told.

[Cooperman]

Here are a few photos of 'before & after' on the '69 Scottish Int. The crash was in the forest at the top end of Loch Lomond at Ardgarten, driver was Chris Sclater, later British Rally Champion. It seems to be broken!

Edited by Cooperman, 01 February 2012 - 12:13 PM.

[nlg624c]

There's always some know-it-all isn't there!

 

Sorry to be a pedant but going back to the first photo on this post, the car on the right of the pic isn't Timo's 'winning' car from the 1966 Monte, but Rauno Aaltonen's car that finished 2nd before it too was disqualified.  Timo's car was GRX555D.  My own first Cooper 'S' was OLG555D a '66 Morris that was similarly fitted with 3.5" wheels and a single tank (when spectating on rallies I rarely passed a petrol station without topping up the tank).  I got it in 1971 and even on the narrow wheels it was blindingly fast through the lanes, though the brakes were a bit marginal.  I nicknamed it Olga and weirdly, when I got married a few years later, my mother-in-law was Olga too.

 

Also interesting is that AJB44B, Timo's 1965 Monte winner has a standard Morris grille in the photo, and not the mesh grille (same pattern as a '65 Austin Healey Sprite) that was fitted for the Monte.  Later, AJB44B was fitted with a black Mk2 grille (why a Mk2 grille on a famous Mk1 Mini???), still with no chrome surround, when Paddy Hopkirk used it to win the 1982 Lombard Golden 50 Rally. The slalom pics show Paddy's car and mine on the Blenheim Palace speed test.  AJB44B is now in the British Motor Museum at Gaydon wearing its correct grille as per the 1965 Monte.

  

An interesting security question about 'Issi' when I registered for the Mini Forum just now - while working at Longbridge in the 1970's I met and chatted to Alec Issigonis a few times. He definitely wanted to talk and tell me his ideas more than he wanted to listen to a young engineer like me! 

 

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[Cooperman]

The 'Golden 50' was great fun. I did it in the 13th production Porsche 911 with my old school friend and former navigator Steve Carr, who was a partner in AutoFarm Porsche Specialists.

We were lying second to Paddy and Brian 'Culch' just before the end when we under-steered off on a test and the front ended up on a straw bail. It took a while for the spectators to lift us off and we dropped down the order a bit.  I don't have any photos of that event though.