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Three T43s which appeared in 1958 remain unidentified (at least by me...) One was raced by Carroll Smith and another, at the Boxng Day Brands Hatch meeting, by Bill de Selncourt. Either or both could have been school cars.
The third was Patsy Burt’s hillclimb car, which she would continue to use until 1962. It was believed at the time to be the ex-school car F2-2-57, though it was later claimed to be F2-14-57. If it was the latter, the possibility of that car going to the Kiwi Equipe goes out the window.
After its retirement from the hills it spent many years in the National Motor Museum before being offered for sale, when still owned by Miss Burt, in 2000.
Ian Raby raced a T43 in 1959, and others were campaigned by George Wicken (F2-6-57?), Gilby Engineering (Keith Greene) and Gordon Jones. In addition George Keylock hillclimbed one, first with FPF engine and later a supercharged FWB, selling it in 1962 to Gordon Parker, who was still using it in 1966.
The works OSCA which raced in the US Grand Prix at the end of the year (with OSCA engine) was said to be T43-based, though may have been a copy.
Another T43 was said to have gone to South Africa the same year, and built up into a race car. This returned to the UK via Cameron Millar about 1970, then passed to Roger Sweet and was subsequently built up as a T51.
In 1960 the names of Paul Simpson, Richard Wrenn and Peter Westbury are linked to unidentified T43s. Simpson still had his in 1963, but Wrenn’s was a non-starter in what appears to have been its only race. (It was not the Hume-Cooper, with which Wrenn was also involved, and which had been constructed from a sports Cooper).
Westbury’s car was said to be ex-Naylor and Campbell-Jones, which would mean Hart could not have had F2-23-57 when we believe he did. Westbury used his car for hillclimbs, fitting a Daimler V8 in 1962. It was subsequently campaigned on the hills by Peter Hawtin and, from 1965, Martin Brain.
Other cars continue to crop up, albeit in decreasing numbers, throught the ’60s. Ray Fielding ran a superchared car in 1961 hillclimbs, and it was later used by Gray and Agnes Mickel. In February 1963 Fielding was advertising two ex-F2 T43s, one with an FWB engine and the other FPF-powered.
In Europe the names of Gino Munaro and “Wal Ever” both appear as drivers of T43s in 1961, the latter’s with OSCA power.
There were several other F2 Coopers racing in various parts of the world from 1958 on, some of which will surely have been T43s. Rather than add to an already confused picture, these are omitted from the above
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