When I was a kid, I loved Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories:” How The Camel Got Its Hump; How The Leopard Got Its Spots. Gather round and I will now tell you How The Cobra Got Its Bite.
It begins with Cooper in 1949, who realized that its simple 500-cc chassis could be the basis for a front-engined sports car. The prototype had the engine from a Vauxhall Ten and the neat spider body was made by Cooper’s in-house panel bashers, Fred Bedding and his son, Pete.
