ERA R14B

This was one of the competitors in the Historic Trophy Race at the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in June 1982.

It's Donald Day's 1937/36 ERA R14B, originally built for pre-war voiturette racing with a supercharged 1½ litre straight-6 engine based on the one that powered the Riley 9, but later changed for a 2 litre supercharged engine. The programme of the event said this about the 11 ERAs that contested this race:

'All being well one foresees a closely fought struggle for the lead in this race between the Hon. Patrick Lindsay's 2 litre ERA Remus, second in the Historic Race at Monaco last month and the first prewar car to finish, Martin Morris's R11B, which he calls Humphrey, Donald Day's R14B, the last B-type ERA made, and R4D, the highly developed ex-Raymond Mays car belonging to Anthony Bamford and driven by Willie Green. Donald is ex-Navy and Willie is fairly outspoken, so what they call their cars is probably not printable.

Sir John Venables-Llewelyn, whose early car R4A also has a 2 litre engine like the above, should go equally well when its engine is properly run in, which it patently wasn't at Donington last month. Patrick Lindsay in  Remus and Martin Morris in Humphrey have each won the Historic Seaman Trophy seven times in the past.

Of the 1½ litre ERAs of Messrs Morris, Marsh, Mann, Classic, Spollon and Tony Stephens, the last three have the possibly doubtful advantage of independent front suspension, not that this is intended as a criticism of the cars the majority of spectators have turned up in today. Bill Morris caused a sensation in the Historic Race at Monaco by stopping in the Casino Square during the race, getting out and borrowing a tool from one of the firemen, mending his car, and then getting in again after starting his engine by swinging the starting handle.'

NB: The 1½ litre cars listed above were respectively R12B, R1B, R9B, R2A, R8C and R12C.

I've previously shown photographs of R14B on 22 May 2016 and 20 September 2016.