Garrie Clifford Cooper (22 December 1935 - 25 April 1982) was the founder of the highly successful
Elfin Sports Cars
Elfin Sports Cars Pty Ltd (formerly known as Elfin Sports Cars) is an Australian car manufacturer company that was founded by Garrie Cooper. It has been an Australian manufacturer of sports cars and motor racing cars since 1959.
Elfin Sports C ...
and a competitive racing driver in his own right, winning the 1968
Singapore Grand Prix
The Singapore Grand Prix; ta, சிங்கப்பூர் கிராண்ட் பிரிக்ஸ் is a motor racing event which forms part of the Formula One World Championship. The event takes place on the Marina Bay Street Cir ...
, the
1968 Australian 1½ Litre Championship, and the
1975 Australian Sports Car Championship - all in Elfin cars of his own design.
Elfin Sports Cars
Cooper established
Elfin Sports Cars
Elfin Sports Cars Pty Ltd (formerly known as Elfin Sports Cars) is an Australian car manufacturer company that was founded by Garrie Cooper. It has been an Australian manufacturer of sports cars and motor racing cars since 1959.
Elfin Sports C ...
in 1959 with the help of his father Cliff Cooper. The first Elfin, the Steamliner, was a front-engined sports car.
[John Blanden & Barry Catford, Australia's Elfin Sports and Racing Cars, Chapter Two, The Steamliner Sports Car, pages 5 to 13] The prototype was completed in October 1959 and was followed by 22 production versions, the last of which was delivered in 1963.
[
]
248 Elfins of various models had been completed by 1983.
Racing career
During the 1978 Australian Grand Prix at the fast Sandown Raceway
Sandown International Raceway is a motor racing circuit in the suburb of Springvale in Melbourne, Victoria, approximately south east of the city centre. Sandown is considered a power circuit with its " drag strip" front and back straights be ...
in Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
, he suffered a broken leg in a high-speed crash while driving his own Elfin MR8
Elfin may refer to:
*ELFIN, a CubeSat developed by University of California, Los Angeles
*Elfin (steamboat), a steamboat that ran on Lake Washington from 1891 to 1900
*Elfin of Alt Clut, ruler of Alt Clut, seventh century Scotland
*Elfin, a charac ...
Formula 5000
Formula 5000 (or F5000) was an open wheel, single seater auto-racing formula that ran in different series in various regions around the world from 1968 to 1982. It was originally intended as a low-cost series aimed at open-wheel racing cars tha ...
. The car was destroyed after leaving the track and crashing into the horse track rails on the back straight at over . Cooper's explanation for the high speed crash was that something broke on the car which sent him spearing into the fence.
In 1980, Cooper designed and built the first open wheel car in Australia to use ground effect aerodynamics
Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dyn ...
, the Elfin MR9 (the MR9 remains the only F5000 ever constructed using ground effect). This car made its race début in Cooper's hands at the 1980 Australian Grand Prix
The 1980 Australian Grand Prix was a motor race held at Calder Park Raceway in Victoria, Australia on 16 November 1980.
It was the forty fifth Australian Grand Prix and it was open to cars complying with Australian Formula 1 regulations, which pe ...
at Melbourne's Calder Park Raceway
Calder Park Raceway is a motor racing circuit in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The complex includes a dragstrip, a road circuit with several possible configurations, and the "Thunderdome", a high-speed banked oval equipped to race either clo ...
. Originally to be driven by French Formula One
Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
driver Didier Pironi
Didier Joseph Louis Pironi (26 March 1952 – 23 August 1987) was a French racing driver. During his career, he competed in 72 Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, driving for Tyrrell (1978–1979), Ligier (1980) and Ferrari (1981 ...
who had experience driving ground effects F1 cars, Cooper himself decided to drive the car as it had only been completed before practice and did not set a qualifying time. Pironi and Cooper's Ansett Team Elfin teammate John Bowe each drove an Elfin MR8 in the race, with Pironi finishing in third place, four laps down on the Williams FW07B
The Williams FW07 was a ground effect Formula One racing car designed by Patrick Head, Frank Dernie, and Neil Oatley for the 1979 F1 season.
Design
1979
It was closely based on the Lotus 79, even being developed in the same wind tunnel at ...
Formula One car of World Champion Alan Jones.
John Bowe also drove the MR9 on limited occasions and felt that with the ground effects it had a lot of potential. However, Elfin were finding out what others had found with ground effect in that it required stronger suspension components to cope with the higher downforce generated in the corners compared to the conventional F5000's with Bowe reportedly receiving a fright during a race at Sandown in 1981 when the front suspension broke on the car. Unfortunately the true potential of the Chevrolet
Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ous ...
V8 powered MR9 was never reached and its racing life was limited to just one year as F5000 racing was phased out of Australian motorsport at the end of 1981.Autosport - Elfin MR9
/ref>
After limited appearances following the 1980 Australian Grand Prix, Cooper retired from racing following the 1981 season.
Health issues
Several years before, Cooper was admitted to hospital to have an artificial heart valve implanted. Due to the metallic material of the valve, Cooper had to take anti-coagulants, which caused concern from CAMS (the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport
Motorsport Australia, formerly the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS), is the nationally recognised governing and sanctioning body for four-wheeled motorsport in Australia. It is affiliated with the Federation Internationale de l'A ...
, Australia's motorsport ruling body), but after extensive lobbying from Cooper and countless letters supporting Cooper from his heart specialist, he was able to regain his racing license and continued his racing career.
Death
Early on Anzac Day (25 April) 1982, while working on a customer's car, Cooper died due to a ruptured aortic aneurysm
An aortic aneurysm is an enlargement (dilatation) of the aorta to greater than 1.5 times normal size. They usually cause no symptoms except when ruptured. Occasionally, there may be abdominal, back, or leg pain. The prevalence of abdominal aortic ...
.
Ansett Team Elfin drivers
Drivers who raced Elfin cars as teammate to Cooper include John McCormack, Vern Schuppan
Vernon John Schuppan (born 19 March 1943) is a retired Australian motor racing driver. Schuppan drove in various categories, participating in Formula One, the Indianapolis 500 and most successfully in sports car racing.
Although he consider ...
, John Bowe, Larry Perkins
Larry Clifton Perkins (born 18 March 1950) is a former racing driver and V8 Supercar team owner from Australia.
Biography Early years
Growing up on a farm in Cowangie in the Mallee region of Victoria, Larry, the son of racing driver Eddi ...
, Formula One World Champion James Hunt
James Simon Wallis Hunt (29 August 1947 – 15 June 1993) ''Autocourse Grand Prix Archive'', 14 October 2007. Retrieved 4 November 2007. was a British racing driver who won the Formula One World Championship in . After retiring from racing in ...
, and Didier Pironi.
Career results
References
*''Motor Racing The Australian Way'', Lansdowne Press, 1974,
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Garrie
1935 births
1982 deaths
Racing drivers from South Australia
Tasman Series drivers