Gordon Coppuck (born 8 December 1936) is a former British racing car designer. During his career, he worked as chief designer at McLaren for many years, eventually moving to March and co-founding Spirit before retiring in 2000.
Career[]
Coppuck began his career working as an apprentice at the National Gas Turbine Establishment, which primarily designed and developed gas turbine and jet engines for aircraft. During his time at the company, he became friends with fellow engineer Robin Herd.
Formula One Career[]
Herd was recruited to McLaren in 1965 and Coppuck followed him to the team to work as his assistant. Together the pair worked to design McLaren's Formula One cars. When Herd departed from McLaren in 1968 to take a job at Cosworth, this left room for Coppuck to be promoted, eventually becoming the team's chief designer in 1971.
Coppuck was responsible for designing a variety of the team's cars, including the successful McLaren M23, which won the team a championship title in 1974. He also worked on the team's IndyCar programme, designing the McLaren M16 that won the Indianapolis 500 in 1972, 1974 and 1976.
In 1980, McLaren merged with Ron Dennis' Project Four Racing. Coppuck left the team to again follow his friend Herd to the March team, who were working to return to Formula One for the 1981 Formula One Season.
His time on March was short-lived, jumping ship with March's Formula Two team manager John Wickham to co-found Spirit Racing. The team was backed by Bridgestone and Honda, who wanted to return to Formula One as an engine supplier.
The team began participating in European Formula Two for 1982 in a Spirit 201 chassis that was designed by Coppuck and ex-McLaren designer John Baldwin. After success in F2, Honda produced a prototype turbocharged Formula One engine and the team entered Stefan Johansson into six Formula One races that season in a modified version of the 201 chassis. Fearing a lack of progress, Honda decided to stop supplying Spirit with engines, instead taking a deal with the more successful Williams team.
Despite this setback, Spirit completed a full Formula One season in 1984, although with very limited success. Finances quickly dried up. The team entered a single car for Mauro Baldi in 1985, planning to give Allen Berg the seat later in the season. However, the team was approached by Toleman to purchase the team's tyre supply contract. Wickham and Coppuck accepted the offer and folded the team.
Plans were in the works for the team to return to the grid in 1986, but they never materialized. Coppuck returned to March to design Formula 3000 cars. Herd was planning a Formula One program for 1987, but the project was ultimately given to Adrian Newey.
Coppuck moved to the CART series to work for Porsche until the German car manufacturer left the series in 1990. Coppuck joined forces with some of his colleagues to form a consultancy business called Adrem. He subsequently worked with the struggling Leyton House team in Formula One in the early 1990s and in America for the CART series.
He retired in 2000.
| v·d·e | Nominate this page for Featured Article |