- The car triple-F1 world champion Jack Brabham piloted in his first F1 race is up for sale
- The car is a 1955 Cooper T40 powered by a Bristol 2.0-liter inline-6
- Brabham drove the car to victory at the 1955 Australian Grand Prix
The car that Australian racing legend Jack Brabham piloted in his Formula 1 debut is up for private sale via RM Sotheby’s with an asking price of 350,000 euros (approximately $387,000).
Brabham won the Drivers’ Championship in 1959, 1960, and 1966, with the final title coming while he raced for his own team, making him the only F1 driver to win the title behind the wheel of a car bearing his own name. His Brabham team also won the Constructors’ Championship in 1966, as well as in the year after that.
The car up for sale didn’t deliver the dream start Brabham may have hoped for. The car is a Cooper T40, and Brabham’s F1 debut took place at the 1955 British Grand Prix held at Aintree. Brabham only qualified 25th on the grid and mostly ran in last place due to issues with the car and its Bristol engine, before retiring about a third of the way into the race.
The car wouldn’t be entered into any more championship races, but a strong performance at a non-championship race held that same year at Snetterton resulted in a fourth-place finish for Brabham, which Brabham in his autobiography said convinced him that he had the talent to compete in F1.
Sir Jack Brabham – Image: JackBrabham.com
The car was later shipped to Australia where Brabham drove it to victory in the 1955 Australian Grand Prix (the Australian race at that time wasn’t on the F1 calendar). The next year, Brabham sold it to Reg Smith to help finance his family’s move to the U.K. and kick off his F1 career.
Various owners have entered the car in historic races in recent decades, and its current owner recently commissioned a full engine rebuild and rebuild of the brakcing system with Intermat Developpement in Mougins, France.
The Cooper T40 was derived from the previous year’s T39, a car nicknamed the Bobtail. Brabham, who already had experience racing Coopers in Australia, convinced the Cooper team to allow him to further develop the T39 into the T40 for entry in the 1955 F1 World Championship.
Power in the T40 comes from a 2.0-liter inline-6 from Bristol. The engine is estimated to deliver around 180 hp and drives the rear wheels via a 4-speed manual transmission.
