Stirling Moss’ race-winning Cooper T51 returned to Goodwood

The Cooper T51 was powered by a 2.5-litre, four-cylinder Climax engine mounted behind the driver, and was the first rear-engined car to win the World Championship for Drivers with Jack Brabham in 1959. It was a pretty special machine, which naturally made it incredibly popular, and privateers queued up to get their hands on Cooper’s revolutionary creation.

Cooper provided this particular chassis to the Rob Walker Racing Team for the 1959 season, and it claimed the T51’s first victory at Goodwood in the season opening Glover Trophy. Moss was the star of the race, winning by more than 16 seconds ahead of Brabham.

But this car was different from the works Cooper entries. On the request of Moss, Rob Walker switched out the T51’s four-speed Ersa gearbox in favour of a five-speed Colotti, which seemingly gave Moss an advantage, but its frailties proved his undoing in the World Championship.

The Glover Trophy-winning car ended up in the hands of Maurice Trintignant for the season proper, and while he raced well he didn’t manage to reach to the top step of the podium. It raced one more time in 1960 at the Argentine Grand Prix. Trintignant started the race behind the wheel, but by the time the car crossed the finish line, Moss had taken over after he suffered a suspension failure while leading. Between them they finished third but were rewarded zero points for sharing the drive.

That was to be the final appearance for this car, which has since gone on to enjoy an impressive life in historic racing, most notably at the Goodwood Revival where, in the hands of Nick Wigley, it won the Gordon Trophy in 2010.

William Nuthall, a regular competitor here at Goodwood, has been involved with the preparation of the car for more than 20 years and knows it pretty much inside out as both a mechanic and a driver. We asked him if it had changed much during that time.

“Not really, no,” he said. “It had normal wheels on it before and we swapped it to wires, since Paul’s owned it and then we’ve changed a few little bits but nothing really major has happened to it in those times.”

The change of wheels was inspired by stories of the car’s history, according to its owner, Paul Griffin. “There’s a great book by Doug Nye,” he told us, “and he commented in there that it ran wire wheels at the time.”

The wire wheels were much lighter, and the team saw an opportunity to save time during races where tyre stops would be necessary.

“It made such an impact on me,” he continued. “I thought, ‘it can't run on its mag wheels anymore, it's got to have wires’. To be able to recreate that, it's nice. People come up and comment on things like that.”

For Griffin, it’s the maintenance of the car’s history that’s most important, his passion lies in continuing the legacy of a man like Stirling Moss, who was a hero to many motorsport fans around the world.

“For me it really matters, and it's nice that Goodwood values it as well. Two years ago this car was recognised along with the two Ferrari 250 SWBs, and this old Cooper Grand Prix car that got knocked around and bashed about was sort of third behind those two immortal cars.

“To me that theme going through it, how they were made and the spirit that went into it. The guys who were prepared to race these in the late 1950s were special people.”

And this Cooper T51 remains a very honest artefact of that era. Much of the bodywork is original, as is the steering wheel — once held by the likes of Moss himself. Those are quite the gloves to fill, then, whenever someone heads out onto a circuit like Goodwood to try and put this car through its paces.

Nutall, an experienced historic racer who has spent a fair amount of time in the cockpit, certainly gets a buzz out of it: “I think that's why we enjoy historic racing, because we are doing something that the guys did 60 or 70 years ago, and it is a great thing to be able to do.

“This has got a 2.5-litre engine, it’s got more power than grip, basically. You have to modulate the throttle a lot, especially in the rain, it’s really enjoyable.”

Even so, these cars are no joke, the danger of that era of racing remains with these cars, but the mindset of driving them has changed somewhat over the years.

“The difference between historic racing and modern racing is you're always going to give a bit more respect to everybody, the cars and everything else. Especially in open wheels, everybody needs to have respect. You’re respecting each other and also the history of each car.”

In every case at the Revival, the cars are by far and away the most important aspect of the track action. They carry such history that a short walk through the paddocks is simply electrifying. They are a direct link between us and the past, and the Revival allows us to get a taste of their world.

That is of course best experienced from behind the wheel, and Griffin was the lucky man who had the chance to race the Cooper T51 at the 2024 Revival, albeit in treacherous conditions.

“It’s fabulous,” he told us. “To get it right is really special on the fast circuits like this. It's most enjoyable on the traditional circuits, somewhere like Castle Coombe or Oulton Park, those traditional circuits.

“It's the older circuits where you can really feel it at home. It's powerful, great brakes, everything you'd want.” But in wet weather there’s one very important thing to remember when driving something so precious as this.

“I'd like to do more, the risk is you come off and one of the things that makes this place so special is it is still as it was — get on the grass and there may be no coming back. I suppose they're always repairable, but best not to bend them, I think.”

Agreed. We love to see these cars pushed to their limits, but we want to be able to enjoy them for years to come. There is truly no replacement for the real thing, and to see cars like this still racing as though it was 1959 is an experience we all need to embrace. Keeping this one moving is something Griffin is very keen to do.

“I'd like to think it wouldn't end up in a museum. It's been mine for ten years and I think part of the obligation of ownership for something as special as this is it does get out, it does race, that's what it's for. It loses its purpose to me if it's in a museum — great that people can still see it, but seeing it is only a fraction of what it's really about.”

You can see and experience many more cars just like this Cooper T51 at the 2025 Revival, and we’re very much looking forward to uncovering more remarkable stories like this one when they return to Goodwood once again.

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Photography by Joe Harding and Jordan Butters.