1935 ERA R4A

This car competed in the Premier Cru Race for Pre-1941 Standard and Modified Racing Cars at the Vintage Sports Cat Club's Hawthorn Memorial Trophies meeting at Oulton Park in July 2015.

It's the 1935 ERA R4A of Nick Topliss and has the 4-cylinder inline 1,980cc supercharged engine, and is seen here during the race at Druids Corner. 

VSCC Racing

Race number 2 at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Hawthorn Memorial Trophies race meeting at Oulton Park in July 2015 had the grand title of 'Premier Cru Racing for Pre-1941 Standard and Modified Racing Cars - 20 Mins. Incorporating the Bruce Spollon Memorial, Ten Tenths Vintage Restorations Pre-War Continental Trophies'. Only six cars competed in that race, and I photographed each of them during the race at Druids Corner.

Nicholas Topliss in the 1935 ERA R4A

Paddins Dowling in the 1936 ERA R10B

Ben Fidler in the 1936 ERA AJM1

Duncan Ricketts in David Baldock's 1938/9 Alta 2 litre

Stephen Shoosmith in his 1931 Bugatti T51

Chris Hudson in his 1925 Bugatti T35B

Hawthorn Memorial & Spanish Trophies Race 2015

The Vintage Sports Car Club's meeting at Oulton Park in July 2015 included the Hawthorn Memorial & Spanish Trophies Race for Pre-1961 Racing Cars and here are some of the cars which took part in that race.

This is the start of the race, viewed from near to Lodge Corner, the last corner on the circuit. The green seating you can see on the left of the photograph is the grandstand at Old Hall Corner - the first corner on the circuit.

The remaining photographs were taken at Lodge Corner, and this is the 4.2 litre 1957 Kurtis Indy-Roadster, entered by Stuart Harper and driven by Frederick Harper, that I featured on 1 December 2014.

This is the 2 litre supercharged 1935 ERA R4A of Nicholas Topliss, and on 3 May 2015 I showed a photograph of this car at Oulton Park in 1987 when it was owned by Sir John Venables-Llewelyn.

Another ERA, this time the 1½ litre supercharged 1936 ERA R10B of Paddins Dowling, which I've not featured before, and the ERA Club records its previous ownership as follows:

R10B     

P N Whitehead      1936       to            1952

R D P Wilkinson   1952       to            1957

J A Williamson      1957       to            1976

J E Finn                 1976       to            1980

N B Mason            1980       to            2005

P P Dowling           2005       to            date

Not shown in the programme of the event, but it's the 1,098cc 1959 Formula Junior Gemini Mk2 of Graham Barron.

This is the 1½ litre supercharged 1935 MG Bellevue Special of Thomas Hardman. On 8 October 2015 I showed a photograph of this car (and other MGs) in the paddock at this meeting. Bonhams recorded its history when the car was put up for auction in 2014.

Robert Longdon's 1960 1,098cc Formula Junior Lola Mk2

William Grimshaw's 1,086cc 1959 Formula Junior Moorland Mk2, which I featured with other Formula Junior cars on 26 March 2017.

The 747cc 1932 Austin 7 Special of Christian Pedersen. When I've seen this car previously it was painted green, but now only the bonnet cover remains green.

Matt Ricketts in father Duncan's 1957 Cooper T41. The T41 was Cooper's first step in Formula 2 racing which only two years later led to Jack Brabham winning the World Championship in the 2½ litre Formula 1 Cooper Climax T51. The programme of the event says that Duncan Ricketts' car has an engine capacity of 1,220cc which seems strange as is doesn't fit any racing Formula that I'm familiar with.

ERA R4A & R4D

The Raymond Mays Trophy race for Pre 1961 Grand Prix Cars at the Silverstone Historic Festival meeting in August 2001 included four ERA cars, and two of them are shown in the photograph below.

The one on the left is Jost Wildbolz's R4A and on the right is Mac Hulbert's R4D. You can read about the two cars, and all the other ERAs on this website.

ERA R4A

Today's photograph was taken at Oulton Park in July 1987 at the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies Meeting. The programme of the event had this to say about these trophies:

The Richard Seaman Trophies

These were kindly presented to the Vintage Sports Car Club by George Monkhouse Esq, as a memorial to his friend that great British driver, R.J.B.Seaman. There are two Trophies and two races, one for pre-1931 Vintage Racing Cars, and the other for Historic Racing Cars made before 1940. In addition to the scratch races for the trophies each race will include a handicap.

The Historic Trophy race always includes a sprinkling of ERA cars; nine took part on this occasion, and this is one of them.

This is a 1935 ERA, R4A, at that time owned by Sir John Venables-Llewelyn, and was fitted with a 2 litre supercharged engine. The ERA Club has detailed records of all the ERA cars and this is a list of the owners of R4A since it was built:

R4A

P G Fairfield 1935 to 1937
N G Wilson 1937 to 1942
R Parnell 1942 to 1945
F R Gerard 1945 to 1955
J MacPhee 1955 to 1956
J de Villiers 1956 to 1957
J Shield 1957 to 1960
J de Villiers 1960 to 1961
B Sargeant 1961 to 1963
F P Brewer 1963 to 1966
Sir John Venables-Llewelyn 1966 to 1996
P A Mann & J Wildbolz 1996 to 1998
J Wildbolz 1998 to 2008
J-R Grellet 2008 to 2012
N J Topliss 2012 to date

There are also details of all the ERA cars on this site.

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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).'