1936 ERA R12B

I took this photograph at Lodge Corner during the Richard Seaman Memorial Historic Trophy Race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's meeting at Oulton Park in June 1981.

It's the 1936 ERA R12B of Bill Morris, previously one of the White Mouse stable's trio of ERAs driven by Prince Bira, where it was given the name 'Hanuman'. It was originally built with a 2 litre engine as a B-type car, but in 1937 it was rebuilt to C-type specifications, thus becoming R12C, and given a 1½ litre engine. In 1939 the car was badly damaged in a crash during practice at Reims and was rebuilt with a B-type frame, reverting to being R12B and the name changing to 'Hanuman II'. After passing through various hands after the Second World War it came to Bill Morris. Bill Morris had managed to acquire the rest of the wreckage left over from the 1939 crash and using the damaged chassis frame rebuilt the car to its 1939 C-type specifications by 1982. That car was now R12C, as if the 1939 accident had never happened, and was given the original car's name of 'Hanuman'.

1936 ERA R5B

This car competed in the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies Race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's meeting at Oulton Park in June 1961.

It's the 1936 ERA R5B 'Remus' of the Hon. Patrick Lindsay, but it's actually a darker blue than appears in the photograph which is from an old colour transparency. The car has the 1,488cc supercharged version of the 6-cylinder ERA engine and it was originally one of the cars in the White Mouse Stable of Siam's Prince Chula and driven by his cousin, Prince Birabongse, known simply as 'Bira'.

OSCA

I took this photograph at the Donington Park museum in May 1989.

The board in front of the car says 'OSCA', but perhaps it should say 'OSCA-Maserati'. It's the Maserati 4CLT/48 of Prince Birabongse (better known as Bira) which had been fitted with a 4½ litre V12 OSCA engine for the last race of the 1951 World Championship season. The works OSCA 4500G used the same engine and had a similar appearance to this car. Bira's car (and the OSCA 4500G) became obsolete with the introduction of the F2 regulations in for the 1952 World Championship season which limited the engine capacity to 2 litres, and OSCA brought out the OSCA 20 for the new Formula. I showed photographs of that car on 22 October 2014 and you can see the family resemblance to the older car.