Hooper was founded as Adams and Hooper and held a royal warrant from 1830, building horse-drawn carriages for William IV, Queen Victoria and Edward VII. It moved into motor bodies at the turn of the twentieth century, and delivered the first royal car, a Hooper body on a Daimler chassis, to Sandringham on 28 March 1900. It specialised in the very top of the market, building the most luxurious bodies without regard to cost, for customers that included the Kings of Spain, Norway, Portugal and Siam.
In the First World War it built Sopwith Camels, three a day. It weathered the Depression better than most coachbuilders, and in 1936 built more than 300 bodies. It took over its rival Barker in 1938 and was acquired by Daimler in 1940, becoming part of the BSA group.
After the war Hooper became famous for a series of extravagantly bodied Daimlers for Lady Docker, wife of BSA’s chairman, including the 1951 Golden Daimler, the Blue Clover, Silver Flash and Golden Zebra. Management ended coachbuilding after Rolls-Royce plans for unitary cars became known in 1958, and Hooper showed for the last time at Earls Court in 1959.
