Steve Rees and his Cooper

Some people take their pets to the office, but Steve Rees, a Kansas City architect, has his car in his office. His tiny 1951 Cooper Formula 500 proudly sits in the lobby entrance of his building in the Crossroads Arts District. This sleek little British Racing Green open-wheeler has even spent time beside his desk when other cars occupied the lobby.

Rees, a true vintage enthusiast, loves old cars. He has owned and raced a number of them. He bought the Cooper as a “bag of bones” from a toy collection, which seems appropriate since it is so small. The car had no paint, the engine wasn’t attached and a crude roll bar had been welded into place. It was ugly. Rees intended to install a larger engine and cover the car with an aluminum body he would design himself, but as he began dismantling the car, he fell in love with it. He decided to restore it to the original configuration.
Rees had the cockpit lengthened to accommodate his height. Brian Haupt and Bob Garcia of Carriage and Motorworks of Kansas City did the body and paint, while Rees did the rest of the work himself. He enlisted the aid of local motorcycle enthusiasts to get the Triumph Speed Twin motorcycle engine running.

Once the car was complete, it was invited to the prestigious Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance in Detroit, where it won a blue ribbon. Rees has driven it in one vintage event.

The Cooper Formula 500 racer is a landmark car. At the end of World War II in England, Charles Cooper and his son John founded the Cooper Car Co. Ltd. and started building sports and racing cars, according to Doug Nye’s book, Cooper Cars.
In 1946, the first 500 was created when John cut two wrecked Fiat Topolinos in half and welded the front sections of their frames back-to-back. A 500cc motorcycle engine was fitted behind the driver, and aluminum body panels were created to cover the chassis. This basic layout became the paradigm for modern racing-car design and it is still used today.

The Formula 500 cars had 500cc motorcycle engines and weighed little more than 500 pounds. Many famous English drivers, including Stirling Moss, got their start in these tiny cars, which were capable of hitting 100 miles per hour.

Initially, Rees’ Cooper occupied a prominent place in the sunroom of his home. When he married Jo Beth a few years ago, friends teased him about how long the car would remain in the house. “Everyone used it as a point of reference for how Jo Beth was going to get along with my passion for cars,” Rees said. “All of my men friends said that it would not last. It remained for five years before being replaced with a sofa and television.” That’s when it moved to his office.
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