by Barry Burton
As there has been some recent comments on Dr Kamm and his influence on car design I thought the following information gleaned from Doug Nye‘s excellent History of the Cooper Car Company might be of some interest.
Back in the late fifties Cooper designed a new sports-racing car called the Monaco. This was powered by a 2.5 litre Coventry Climax engine and comprised of a space frame chassis and a beautiful aluminium body with a shapely LONG tail. Cooper toiled against the clock to complete it in time for its first race -imagine the consternation when on pushing it into the transporter they found that it was too long to fit in. Charles Cooper, who was by all accounts a bit of a rough diamond and an engineer of the blacksmith philosophy flew into a rage and ordered the "bloody tail" to be chopped off. The "bloody tail" was immediately docked and the resulting hole covered by a flat sheet of aluminium.
The Cooper Monaco was an immediate success and trounced the opposition. In the paddock Charles Cooper was approached by Colin Chapman of Lotus - his great rival (apparently referred to by Cooper as "flash ‘arry"). "I see you’ve been reading the theories of Dr Kamm" said Chapman pointing to the flat tail. "Eh, what, oh yeah that's right" said Cooper, who had never even heard of Dr Kamm. Chapman went off and hurriedly designed the Lotus Monte Carlo which was also successful. Before long all the successful sports-racers featured flat tails and Dr Kamm was hailed as a genius - but in truth the credit really should have gone to old man Cooper and his short van!