1936 ERA R11B

I took this photograph at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Richard Seaman Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in June 1969.

It's Martin Morris in his 1936 ERA R11B which was 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. Martin Morris won the Richard Seaman Memorial Historic Trophy Race that day for the first time, and went on to win it with 'Humphrey' nine more times.

1936 ERA R11B

I took this photograph at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in June 1970.

It's Martin Morris returning to the paddock in his 1936 ERA R11B after winning the Richard Seaman Memorial Historic Trophy Race. R11B was 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.

Richard Seaman Memorial Historic Trophy Race

I took this photograph just past Old Hall Corner in the early laps of the Richard Seaman Memorial Historic Trophy Race at Oulton Park in June 1973.

Car number 6 is the 1930/23 Bentley Napier (also known as the Napier Bentley) of David Llewellyn with Martin Morris alongside in his 1936 ERA R11B 'Humphrey'. The programme of the event said that the favourites today would be;

'....Neil Corner's ERA R4D, and Martin Morris's 2 litre ERA R11B, with a beam front axle and the engine set back in the chassis for Ken Wharton's sprinting activities with it. An unknown quantity to challenge these cars is David Llewellyn's Bentley Napier, powered by a 12 cylinder 24 litre Napier Lion aero engine. This car proved to be faster than the ERAs at Silverstone in April, but may be less successful on the twists and turns of Oulton Park, though this has yet to be proved.'

The Bentley Napier is here in it's original guise, and on 16 August 2015 I showed how it looked with newer bodywork at Donington Park in May 2001.

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.

Alfa Romeo P3

This car contested the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophy Race for Historic Racing Cars at Oulton Park in June 1993.

It's Rodney Felton's 1934 Alfa Romeo P3 (chassis #50009) with a 3.2 litre straight eight engine and designed by Vittorio Jano, who 20 years later , in 1954, designed the V8 2½ litre Lancia D50. On 27 April 2016 I showed photographs of an Alfa Romeo P3, probably the same car, at the VSCC's meeting at Oulton Park in 2005. Behind Rodney Felton's car here is the 1936 ERA R11B of Martin Morris.

ERAs at Donington

In the programme for the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2004 is a piece about the ERA which starts off as follows:

'Considering the English Racing Automobiles only made 17 cars over a five-year period in the 1930s - plus a couple of not-altogether-succesful grand prix designs - the mystique that surrounds the three-ringed ERA logo might appear disproportionate. But the fact that all but four of those 17 cars are present this weekend is a clue to what makes the ERA story so unique. Like that other British design icon, the Supermarine Spitfire, the ERA has come to symbolise success in the face of fearsome odds. But unlike the Spitfire, the ERA has continued to do its job almost without a break since its genesis in the 1930s, and ERAs have been raced in every decade over the last 70 years.'

On 29 October 2012 I showed photographs of five ERAs at Oulton Park and mentioned the ERA website detailing the history of all the cars. Here are three photographs I took of some of the cars at the Donington meeting and although I didn't make a note of which of the cars they were at the time, I've tried to identify them now. One of the events at the meeting was 'A 70th Anniversary Race for ERAs and ERA-engined Racing Cars', but not all the cars took part in the race.

The cars in the above photograph appear to be (from right to left):
R2B    One of Prince Bira's White Mouse Stable's cars and given the name 'Romulus'. R2B wasn't entered in the 70th anniversary race at the meeting and was owned at that time by Narissa Chakrabongse.
R12B   Another of the White Mouse Stable's cars and this one is 'Hanuman II'. In 2004 it was owned by David H Wenman, and driven in the ERA race by Tony Stephens.
R11B   Named 'Humphrey', owned in 2004 by Martin Morris and driven in the race by David Morris.
R4A     Driven in the ERA race by the owner Jost Wildbolz.
R5B   The third of the White Mouse Stable cars and named 'Remus', as the twin of 'Romulus'. Driven at Donington by the then owner Ludovic Lindsay.
NB: The three White Mouse Stable cars have the Siamese flag on the front corner of the engine cover, and R2B and R5B have a white mouse on the rear-view mirror fairing.

Here we've got (from left to right):
GP1    This E-Type ERA also took part in the race driven by the then owner (who still owns this car) Duncan Ricketts.
GP2    The second of the E-Types, but this one didn't take part in that day's race. It was then (and is still currently) owned by Ms L & Ms N Chapman according to the ERA Club website.
R12C   This car is named 'Hanuman' (have a look at the ERA website referred to above for the difference between 'Hanuman' and 'Hanuman II'). It was owned at that time by Bill Morris but driven in the race by Gregory Snape.

This photograph shows:
GP2     again.
R12C   again - this photograph was actually taken some time before the one above and seems to be R12C before it had the number '78' applied.
R9B     Then owned by Peter Mann but driven in the ERA race by John Ure.
R6B     A bit of a guess this, but it's a dark coloured car and I've come across a photograph of R6B at this meeting in approximately the position of this car in my photograph. It's a dark blue, almost black car which was driven that day by the owner, Ian Landy.
AJM1  The ERA website says about this car: 'Anthony J. Merrick prepared and raced R1A until its then owner sold the car.  Being without a car the resourceful Merrick shuffled his stock of genuine ERA parts and came up with AJM1. The 1980s brand new 1930s car is said to be an 80% original ERA B-type car using a 1.5litre engine and light green early works colour scheme.' It has since been painted red and was driven at Donington by the then owner, Rainer Ott.
ERA-Riley Special  Shown in the race programme as a 1936 car with a 2000cc engine and driven by the owner Keith Knight, but the only information I can find about this car is this reference to a book called 'Sporting Rileys, The Forgotten Champions' by David G Styles:

'The ERA / Riley

Keith Knight’s (in conjunction with Geoff Richardson) beautifully crafted, authentic, resurrection/re-creation of the later version of the Maclure/Richardson car is shown in the John Bateman article with ERA engine. (see also Dennis Jenkinson, Directory of Historic Racing Cars).'

ERA (or English Racing Automobiles)

ERA was a racing car manufacturer founded in 1933 by Humphrey Cook, Raymond Mays and Peter Berthon. Because of the prohibitive cost of building Grand Prix cars, at a time when it started to be dominated by the German Mercedes Benz and Auto Union cars, they opted instead for the smaller voiturette class. Most of the cars built still exist and regularly compete in historic events and you can read the history of each car on this excellent website.

Below are photographs of five of the cars at the Richard Seaman Memorial Historic Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in June 1982.

ERA R5B ("Remus") driven by the Hon. Patrick Lindsay

ERA R11B ("Humphrey") driven by Martin Morris

ERA R12B ("Hanuman II") driven by Bill Morris leading R2A driven by Brian Classic

ERA R9B driven by Peter Mann leading a Cooper Bristol