garagiste and pooper

garagiste

a term used by Enzo Ferrari in the early days of Formula One racing, describing the privateer race teams, primarily the British ones

Enzo Ferrari coined the term "garagiste," to scornfully describe the small back-yard racing teams that dared to challenge a grand Constructor like himself.

In the late 50's and early 60’s a growing number of little British ‘privateer’ Formula One teams popped up from nowhere to compete against the big factory teams of Ferrari and Maserati. They didn’t have flash branding, big headquarters and massive budgets.

What they did have were innovative ideas, new designs and a total lack of respect for doing things “the traditional way”.

The old guard didn’t particularly like this and Enzo Ferrari disparagingly labelled them “garagiste”.

Regardless of their humble beginnings the Garagiste started winning. They started winning..a lot.

Ken Miles’ Infamous Pooper

When the 550 was replaced with the much-improved 550A, John von Neumann had trouble procuring one of the in-demand new cars for his racing stable. So driver Ken Miles called upon his days building custom specials and had von Neumann order a light and nimble Cooper race car without a motor. After a Porsche 550 engine was installed and modifications were made with the help of fabricator Dick Troutman, the “Pooper” proved nearly unbeatable in its class. Porsche took notice and, dismayed that the homebuilt special was beating their factory cars, quickly delivered a 550A to von Neumann’s shop, putting an end to the Pooper’s reign.

OK, now imagine building a replica Cooper Type 39 frame and dropping a 2 liter VW engine with upright cooling with flipped transaxle and simple transverse leaf spring suspsion. Build an aluminum body and see how lightweight you can build the entire thing. Try to get the power to weight ratio "right" and you'd have a proper race car...