Hooper was, quite simply, the best; in any discussion of Britain's top coachbuilders it was not simply on everyone's list, it was at the top - possibly for elegance of line, probably for quality of workmanship, certainly for an unequalled combination. Hooper's designs would rarely have been described as sleek or racy; the epiphets most frequently applied would have been dignified or elegant. Nothing was too much trouble to satisfy the whims of a customer. But as for cost...."if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it".

Hooper, perhaps more than any other coachbuilding firm, founded its reputation on royal patronage. Established in 1805, with premises in Haymarket, London, it held royal warrants to the British sovereigns in an unbroken sequence from 1830 until the closure of the original company in 1959.

With almost a century of experience, Hooper bodied its first horseless carriages before 1900 and its first motor car for the British royal family, a Daimler, for King Edward VII in 1904. By this time Hooper had established showrooms at the top of St James' in London and its Chelsea factory was the biggest of its kind in London.

Between the two world wars, Hooper constructed limousines, landaulettes, broughams, sedancas, saloons and coupes with much success. Increased demand led to a second factory in West London, so that in the peak year of 1936 over 300 bodies were produced (a seemingly miniscule number by today's standards, but huge by the standards of bespoke coachbuilders). As the "Times" said at this time, Hooper's list of royal and distinguished patrons was "unequalled by any other coachbuilder in the world", including as it did the Emperor of Japan, the King of Egypt and the Shah of Persia.

In 1938 Hooper purchased the prestigious firm of Barkers from the receivers and during WWII was itself bought by the BSA combine, which included Daimler cars, then the holders of the royal warrant for motor car manufacture and on which chassis Hooper had built many cars. There now followed a a period in Hooper's history which was even more glamorous, although perhaps slightly less dignified. At successive London motor shows in the early 1950s, one of the star attractions would be the latest Docker Daimler, designed for Lady Docker, wife of the BSA chairman, by Osmond Rivers, Hooper's chief designer. At a time of grey, post-war austerity the coachwork was sure to contain some outrageous, attention-grabbing feature such as gold plated fittings or zebra skin upholstery designed to attract maximum press coverage.

Despite technical advances and River "New Look" or "Empress Line" being the dominant style in British coachbuilding from 1948, when Hooper learned from Roll-Royce in 1959 that the successor to the Silver Cloud would not have a chassis, it realised that its era of traditional coachbuilding had come to an end. It continued to provide services and spares until 1970, when it was appointed a R-R distributor. In 1981 it became an officially approved R-R coachbuilder and underwent a rebirth, creating a series of limousines and 2 door coupes which rivalled in exoticism and extravagance any coachwork of Hooper's halcyon days. Most recently it merged with the old established dealer Jack Alpe to become Hooper Alpe Ltd.