Cooper Bikes partners with Spoon Customs for limited edition bikes celebrating historic Formula 1 success

Cooper Bikes has is partnering with British bespoke bike brand Spoon Customs for a limited run of bikes to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Cooper’s back-to-back Formula 1 world championship titles in 1959 and 1960.

The bikes have been designed by Andy Carr, the founder of Spoon Customs, and Charlie Cooper, whose grandfather founded the Cooper Car Company which revolutionised motorsport with its rear-engine chassis design, with its cars driven to world championship success by the Australian driver Sir Jack Brabham.

The limited edition range of bikes will be handmade for each customer and will have road/gravel geometry, using TIG-welded HSS and XCR steel from Italian firm Columbus.

Finishing will be carried out in Surrey at Spoon’s new premises and hand-painted by its in-house paint business Gun Control, with the colour schemes reflecting Cooper’s racing heritage.

Pricing begins at £3,550 + delivery and applicable sales taxes for which you get the painted frame and fork, stem, bar and seat pin. More information is available here.

Charlie Cooper (right), who founded Cooper Bikes in 2009 with his father Mike, said: “I’ve followed Andy and Spoon Customs for a while and when we had the opportunity to work together, I jumped at it.

“This partnership will allow us to offer a new range of beautiful custom bikes that are totally unique and best in class in finish and build.

“We are also excited to be working with Italian craftspeople too, using the very best steel technology from Columbus Tubi near Milan.

“The Cooper brand has a great history with Italy, the idea for the original Mini Cooper was born in Monza in 1959 when my grandfather took a prototype Mini to the Italian Grand Prix.

“When working with the John Cooper Works brand we also built the first MINI GP with an Italian company – coach-builder Bertone.”

Andy Carr (left) added: “The Cooper brand has been at the pinnacle of engineering excellence for 60 years, winning two Formula 1 World Titles and producing some of the most engaging and iconic racing cars ever made.

“To work with Charlie on the design of a new road bike was a privilege and to be entrusted to engineer a performance product worthy of the Cooper brand is a dream come true.”