Cooper-Fiat Part 2: Resurrection

Story by Bob Birmingham

Read Part 1

After his impressive drive at Marlboro, finishing a close second to the Alfa engined Cooper, there occurred a major renovation to Dick Eisenmann’s Cooper.

From time to time, he frequented a foreign car repair shop just down the road from his office. In anticipation of a lengthy business trip, he took his Cooper there for a little “mechanical sweetening and anything else that was needed.” Upon returning, he found the car painted — a tomato orange had replaced the historic Team Cunningham blue over white.

In early 1965, he returned to Elm Grove Wisconsin, and opened Interstate Safety and Fire Company, a time-consuming effort that limited his racing activity. His biggest overall win occurred on a wet track during the 1965 Road America 500 weekend. A front row starting position was followed by a first lap off-road spin in a downpour at Corner 5’s lefthander, with another one at Corner 8 to follow. But in spite of these excursions, he fought back to victory. Years later, Dick recalled the car and performance. “It was very forgiving. Anybody with limited racing experience could buckle up and drive the wheels off of it without worrying about it breaking loose. If you went into a corner too fast, it might drift a bit, but easily corrected. It was very solid while racing in the rain.” For that performance, friends dubbed him the ‘Rain Meister.’

Later that year for the Milwaukee Region’s annual Oktober Rennen at Lynndale Farms Raceway 20 miles west of Milwaukee, a competitor locked up his brakes entering corner one and ran into Dick’s backside damaging the Citroen/DeTomaso transmission case and ring and pinion. Unable to find a replacement, he parked the car in a large Quonset hut used to store commercial business inventory, equipment and a few other classic cars.

A further career

After his stint with the Cooper, Dick went on to race other cars including Ham Vose’s Lightweight Corvette, also the ex-Harry Heuer MeisterBrau Chaparral and the ex-Cliff Phillips Lotus 27 Formula Junior, both owned at the time by Erwin “Ike” Uihlein, Jr. It was in the Lotus 27 that Dick, for the second time, finished first overall among all Formula cars during the 1967 Road America June Sprints weekend.

In addition, starting in 1968, he purchased, prepared and campaigned an NSU TTS D Sedan in which he twice qualified for SCCA’s American Road Race of Champions (ARRC) National Runoffs. At Daytona International Speedway in 1969, he qualified 12th on the grid and finished 3rd. The following year at Road Atlanta, he started 11th and finished seventh.

Dick served SCCA as a National Chief Steward for over 50 years and during the seventies/eighties era was Chief Steward for the pro-Mini Indy Robert Bosch Super Vee series, co-sanctioned by SCCA and USAC. As such, he was the top series official at Michigan International Speedway, Indianapolis Raceway Park, Road America, Wisconsin State Fair Park, Long Beach, California, Watkins Glen, NY and Trois Riveres, Quebec, Canada.

Suddenly, 25 years later

Meanwhile, the Cooper Fiat had been stored in the Quonset hut for nearly 25 year,s collecting dirt and grime until about 1990 when Dick pulled it out into daylight, assessed its condition and set about to locate needed parts. His company was doing well and, with a little free time, he decided to pull and rebuild the engine and transmission. Says Dick, “By phone I found and purchased an acceptable transmission housing from someone in Pennsylvania, installed it onto the engine, and then returned it back to dead storage.”

By the year 2002, vintage sports car racing events were flourishing all over the country and Dick’s interest in racing was rekindled. With that, he entrusted his Cooper T56 to Dennis Eide’s Competition Prep in Zenda, Wisconsin for a complete ground up restoration and what a job they did! Upon arriving to pick it up and return to Elm Grove, I couldn’t believe how beautiful it looked in the original Team Cunningham trim.

A trip to Blackhawk Farms for his initial return to competition resulted in the same old transmission problem. Now, with Internet capabilities, he found and purchased 2 cases from a source in Europe and, after receipt, completed the necessary repair. He chose to return the car to storage, this time in his airplane hangar at Crites Field near suburban Waukesha, where today it greets visitors when entering the side door.

Meeting Peter Jackson

In September of 2005, Dick, along with Milwaukee Region SCCA friends, traveled to the UK to take in the annual Goodwood Revival. While there, he chanced to meet a Brit by the name of Peter Jackson, who is a former racer, author and historian on all things related to Cooper Formula Juniors. Jackson writes of the meeting:

“In 2005, as usual I was watching the traditional cricket match whilst waiting for the driver’s briefing to start, enjoying the Veuve Clicquot Champagne. I was wearing a shirt emblazoned with a Cooper badge, as is my habit at historic racing events. The chap next to me casually glanced aside, noticed the badge and engaged me in conversation enquiring if I had a Cooper, which model, and if I was I racing it here. I explained all about my car. We introduced ourselves and that’s how I got to know Dick Eisenmann, or more fondly now, Racer Dick. He mentioned that he also had a T56 in USA and told me about it.

“This was pretty exciting because I did actually know a little bit about Dick’s car because he had joined the Cooper Car Club many years previously and there were a few notes in our file. It was a very memorable moment for me, meeting the owner quite unexpectedly. We chatted animatedly about Coopers and particularly the virtues of the all-conquering T56 model. However, eventually I was dragged away into the large marquee for the obligatory drivers briefing, but next day by arrangement Dick found his way over to the Formula Junior paddock where he sat in my car for a quite a while and said that it felt much the same as his car but the colour scheme was reversed – my car was the period French owner’s blue with white stripe, whereas his car was white with blue stripe Cunningham livery. Thus began an enduring (albeit distant) friendship brought about only by a pure chance meeting in a crowd of people, although I did shorten the odds by wearing a conspicuous Cooper badge.”

Of the same meeting, Dick put it this way:

“As part of our Goodwood Revival Tour, we visited Lord March’s estate to take in a cricket match being played by retired British racers of note with the likes of Stirling Moss, Dickie Atwood and others. Nearby stood a gentleman who had on white overalls adorned with a Cooper patch. Playing the dumb American, I asked him to tell me the meaning of the patch and he politely said Coopers were highly successful British race cars. Next, I asked several dumb follow-up questions as to what kind of car, what model is it and how many people can fit in it. Being the classy guy that Peter is, he answered every query and added that he owned one of only 22 Cooper T56s made. At this point, I admitted to owning a T56 and identified it with my serial number and with that began the start of a close friendship, albeit one that spans the Atlantic Ocean.

“Just picture it, 2 guys meet by chance, each an owner of a limited Cooper T56 Formula Junior, standing side by side, drinking Pimms Cups at a cricket match. Days like this only happen once in a lifetime.”

At Monterey

In 2006, after the car was a winner at several nearby concours events, Dick was invited to participate in the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile race event at Mazda Raceway in California. Cooper race cars were the featured marque and it clearly was important for Dick to join in the celebration.

A few years later in 2010, Dick took the car to Elkhart Lake for the 60th anniversary of the famous event where Walt Hansgen had won the F Jr. race in 1960 with the Cooper Fiat in only it’s second time out.

The Cooper Fiat today

And so today, as you read these words, the fabled ex-Team Cunningham Cooper-Fiat T56 Formula Junior, s/n FJ10-61 is in repose near the entrance of Dick’s airport hangar at Crites Field, near Waukesha, Wisconsin, among his collection of cars and motorsports memorabilia.