Pre 1952 Grand Prix Car Race

This is a photograph that I took during the HGPCA Pre '52 GP Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in August 1996.

Leading is Martin Stretton in Simon Bull's 1932 Maserati 4CM closely followed by Peter Hannen's 1937 Maserati 6CM with Ludovic Lindsay's 1936 ERA R5B bringing up the rear. The car in the background appears to be Tony Merrick's 1934 ERA R1B.

ERA R5B

This car took part in the Historic Seaman Trophy race at the VSCC's meeting at Donington Park in May 2001.

It's the 1936 ERA R5B of Ludovic Lindsay, one of the ERAs originally owned by Prince Chula of Siam and his White Mouse stable and driven by his cousin Prince Bira. Prince Chula owned another ERA, R2B, which was also campaigned by Prince Bira, and R2B and R5B were respectively given the names 'Romulus' and 'Remus'. Prince Chula later acquired another ERA, R12B, which was named 'Hanuman'. ERAs competed with engines of 1.1 litres, 1.5 litres and 2 litres, and according to the programme of this event R5B had a 1,987cc supercharged unit. The photograph above was taken during the race at the inside of Coppice Corner.

I've shown photographs of ERA R5B on previous occasions, most recently on 23 January 2019.

ERA

Here are photographs of some of the ERAs that took part in the Richard Seaman Memorial Historic Trophy Race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's meeting at Oulton Park in July 1987.

This is the six-cylinder 1½ litre supercharged engine of the 1935 ERA R1B, then owned by Sue Marsh and driven in the race by Duncan Ricketts. This car was originally owned by Dick Seaman.

This is R11B, named 'Humphrey' by its first owner Reggie Tongue after the ERA founder, Humphrey Cook. It was originally a 1½ litre car in 1936, but was given a 2 litre supercharged engine in the late 1940s. This car was owned, and driven, by Martin Morris from 1962 until his death in 2006 when it passed to his son David.

This is Martin Morris in R11B at Lodge Corner during the race.

This is R5B, a 1936 1½ litre car purchased by Prince Chula for his White Mouse team and driven by his cousin Prince Bira. Prince Chula already owned R2B and the two cars were named 'Romulus' (R2B) and 'Remus' (R5B) after the Roman twins. Driven here at Lodge Corner by Ludovic Lindsay who inherited the car from his late father the Hon. Patrick Lindsay in 1986. The programme of this event shows the engine capacity as 1,986cc supercharged.

This is R12B, a 1936 car with rather a messy history, originally with a 2 litre engine, but here with a 1½ litre supercharged unit. Another car that was once a White Mouse team car driven by Prince Bira and named 'Hanuman', it's here being driven at Lodge Corner by Bill Morris and trying to pass Rodney Felton in a 1934 Alfa Romeo P3.

Lastly, again at Lodge Corner, we have Anthony Mayman in R4D, a 1936 car with 2 litre supercharged engine.

I've shown photographs previously of two other ERAs taking part at this meeting: on 3 May 2015 I featured R4A, and on 30 April 2017 it was R8C.

You can read the history of all the ERAs, including the confusion about the identity of R12B here.

ERAs

I took this photograph from the inside of Coppice Corner at the VSCC's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Donington Park in May 2001.

The photograph was taken during the Historic Seaman Trophy race and shows David Morris, driving his father Martin's ERA R11B 'Humphrey', passing Ludovic Lindsay in ERA R5B 'Remus' on the inside. Both cars are 1936 models and have the 2 litre supercharged 6-cylinder engine, and you can read the histories of these cars, together with all the other ERAs, on this website.

ERAs at Silverstone

The Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1998 included a race billed as the HGPCA Pre-1952 Grand Prix Car Race which included amongst the entry list eight ERAs. Here are three photographs showing four of those cars.

This is the 1936 ERA B Type of Ludovic Lindsay who drove the car in the race. The car is R5B 'Remus' and is one of those formerly driven by Prince Bira of Siam - you can see the Siamese colours on the rear of the car.

This is the 1937 C Type of Bill Morris and was driven by him in the race. It is designated R12C and is known as 'Hanuman', but has a confusing history and I've somewhat condensed the story of the car(s) told  in members.madasafish.com to produce the following:

ERA R12B 'Hanuman / Hanuman II'

R12B was a 1936 works car with a 2 litre engine and in the works black colour scheme. Raymond Mays successfully hill climbed R12B at Shelsley Walsh and raced at Brooklands.

1937 The works rebuilt R12B to C-type specification with a 1.5 litre engine and a long-range fuel tank. 1938 The works sold R12B/C to Prince Chula for Bira to drive. R12B/C was painted with a light blue body and yellow chassis and wheels of the 'White Mouse' stable and made the national racing colours of Siam (Thailand). In the tradition of 'White Mouse' cars, following R2B 'Romulus' and R5B 'Remus' R12C was named 'Hanuman'

1939 saw Bira race R12B/C to win the Nuffield Trophy at Donington Park. Somewhat less successfully Bira crashed R12B/C at in practice for the Coupe de la Commission Sportive at Rheims, France. Bira suffered only minor injuries but the car was badly damaged. NOW THIS IS WHERE THINGS GET A BIT TRICKY! As happens with many well raced cars repair and modification keeps cars on the track but complicates their history. R12B had been modified to C-type spec. and was now repaired with the only available chassis frame (a B-type, probably from R8B left over from its rebuild up to C-type spec.) so that the cars code letter reverted to 'R12B' and its name was moved on to 'Hanuman II'. The spare parts from sorting out the mess were set aside – see R12C 'Hanuman', below, for what happened to them.

ERA R12C 'Hanuman'

1982 - Respected car restorer and ERA expert W.R.G. 'Bill' Morris rebuilt the wreckage left over from the R12B/C 'Hanuman' crash and rebuild (see R12B Hanuman / Hanuman II', above). The project used the original mangled chassis frame from R12B/C, other R12B/C parts and other period parts with any gaps filled by remanufactured parts.

The result was 'R12C – Hanuman' a C-type ERA as if the 1939 Rheims accident had not happened.  As at the time Bill Morris owned both 'R12B – Hanuman II' and 'R12C – Hanuman' the question of whether one or the other or both or neither was 'genuine' was a matter he would have had to fight out with himself !

Here are three of the ERAs at Luffield Corner during the race. Number 44 on the outside is R12C 'Hanuman' driven by Bill Morris, number 16 at the front is the 1937 B Type R14B of Donald Day driven by Goff Tidball and the light green car bringing up the rear is the 1934 A Type R1A of E Dean Butler driven by Martin Walford.

A full list of all the ERA cars and their various owners is shown on the ERA Club website.

ERA R5B 'Remus'

There are comprehensive records detailing the history of each of the ERA cars built during the 1930s, and of the few cars subsequently built in the post-war years. This site gives the history of each car and all the owners of each car are listed here.

ERA R5B 'Remus' was originally owned by the White Mouse team of HRH Prince Chula of Siam and driven by his cousin HRH Prince Birabongse, otherwise known as B. Bira. This is the list from the second site linked above showing all the owners of that car:

R5B
H R H Prince Chula 1936 to 1937
A P R Rolt 1937 to 1939
A P R Rolt & St.J R Horsfall 1939 to 1946
I F Connell 1946
P H Bell 1946 to 1951
J D Hamilton & P Fotheringham-Parker 1951
H Sullivan 1951 to 1952
V Thomas 1952 to 1954
K Flint 1954 to 1955
J W Broad 1955 to 1956
W F Moss 1956 to 1959
Hon. Patrick Lindsay 1959 to 1986
A L Lindsay 1986 to 2010
C K McCabe 2010 to date

Here is a photograph of the car at the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophy meeting at Donington Park in May 2001 when it was in the ownership of Ludovic Lindsay.