Cooper Motor Bodies

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cooper Motor Bodies was a British coachbuilder operating in London from the 1920s to the 1960s . In the pre-war period, Cooper completed entire cars; after the war, the company mainly dealt with the conversion of series vehicles.

Company history

Cooper initially had factories in Shepherd's Bush, London . In 1931 the company relocated its headquarters to the Putney district south of the Thames . It was still located there in the late 1950s.

Before the Second World War , Cooper mainly manufactured superstructures for utility vehicles and funeral vehicles . A second mainstay was the body shop for passenger cars , with Cooper processing products from other manufacturers without exception.

In the pre-war period, chassis and bodies were usually manufactured separately; the chassis could then be fitted with superstructures from various bodybuilders. While the British series manufacturers mostly had standardized bodies from suppliers or affiliated plants such as Briggs , Carbodies or Pressed Steel in their product range, luxury vehicles were often provided with individual special bodies from specialized workshops, the shape of which was tailored to the wishes of the respective customer. In many cases, older chassis were clad with more modern bodies after a few years. There were a few factories in the UK that specialized in these revisions. These included Coachcraft and the Southern Motor Company , which offered inexpensive options.

Cooper was also active in this segment. Unlike Coachcraft and Southern, Cooper did not design or build any bodies himself. Rather, the company took advantage of the overproduction of established British bodywork manufacturers. Cooper bought ready-made bodies at very low prices from plants such as Freestone & Webb , Hooper or Park Ward , which for various reasons had not found a buyer, and mounted them on any chassis according to customer requirements. In addition to assembly, Cooper's service was regularly limited to the work that was necessary to adapt to the respective chassis. This resulted in extraordinary combinations. Among other things, several bodies of the Austin 20 were mounted on Rolls-Royce chassis, the chassis of a Bugatti T46 was given the body of a Sunbeam limousine, and a 1924-built chassis of a Hispano-Suiza H6C was subsequently fitted to Cooper with a body from Freestone from 1928 & Webb, which was originally built for Mercedes. Cooper worked in this segment until the early post-war period.

In the 1950s, Cooper produced so-called Sleeping Conversions based on British production sedans. The front and rear seats were converted in such a way that they could be folded down and resulted in a coherent lying area. The Sleeping Conversions were available for vehicles like the Hillman Minx , the Standard Vanguard and the upper mid-range from Vauxhall . Prices for the conversion started in 1960 at £ 37.50.

The company has not been active since the mid-1960s.

literature

Nick Walker: A – Z British Coachbuilders: 1919–1960 . Herridge & Sons Limited, Shebbear, Devon, United Kingdom 2007, ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nick Walker: A – Z British Coachbuilders: 1919–1960 . Herridge & Sons Limited, Shebbear, Devon, United Kingdom 2007, ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 , p. 101.
  2. ↑ Barrie Price: The Rise of Jaguar: A detailed study of the 'Standard era' 1928 to 1950 , Veloce Publishing Ltd., 2004, ISBN 9781904788270 .
  3. ↑ Nick Walker: A – Z British Coachbuilders: 1919–1960 . Herridge & Sons Limited, Shebbear, Devon, United Kingdom 2007, ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 , p. 102.
  4. ↑ Barrie Price: Bugatti Type 46 & 50: The Big Bugattis , Veloce Publishing Ltd. 2015, ISBN 9781845848729 , p. 48.
  5. ↑ Image of the vehicle on the website www.coachbuild.com (accessed on May 31, 2020).
  6. ↑ Image of the vehicle on the website www.coachbuild.com (accessed on May 31, 2020).