As well as being a racing team, Cooper was very much a business, as shown by the 1958 International Trophy where 19 Coopers of various types made up more than half the grid. Right from the outset the T51 was designed to be produced in large numbers and offered for sale to privateer teams, with Rob Walker getting full-works cars and the rest receiving slightly more workmanlike models. No fewer than ten other entrants ran T51s in Formula 1 during 1959, and with the works team switching to the T53, and Walker using Lotus 18s, many of the ex-works cars were sold and continued to be entered in 1960. Indeed, the T51 continued to appear on minor, non-championship F1 race entry lists as late as the 1967 Rhodesian Grand Prix.
