1909 Cooper 22.5HP Torpedo Tourer

1909 Cooper 22.5HP Torpedo Tourer

"However, the idea of making motorcars appealed to (Thomas) Cooper, and he designed a 2-cylinder 2-stroke piston-valve engine which he fitted to a car in 1909. It had chain drive to the gearbox and further chain drive to the rear wheels. The production Cooper, which was ready for the 1909 Olympia Show, had a 3260cc 4-cylinder engine, also a 2-stroke with piston valves, shaft drive to the 3-speed gearbox and to the rear wheels. An auxiliary gearbox close to the rear axle gave a total of six forward gears. Only six Coopers were made, each differing in detail from the other." – The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile, Volume 1.

The Cooper motorcar was manufactured by the Cooper Steam Digger Co Ltd of King's Lynn, Norfolk, makers of agricultural machinery and traction engines. Its most notable feature is the engine; nowadays we tend to think of the two-stroke engine as a model of simplicity (in its most basic form the single-cylinder 'stroker' has only three moving parts) yet that of the Cooper is breathtakingly complex, featuring two crankshafts and 12 pistons! Of the six cars built, this is the sole survivor.

Descriptions & Pictures by bonhams