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Showing posts with label R1A. Show all posts
Showing posts with label R1A. Show all posts

Thursday, 28 April 2022

1934 ERA R1A

I took this photograph in the paddock at Oulton Park at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Richard Seaman Memorial Trophies meeting in June 1961.
It's the 1934 ERA R1A, the first ERA to be built,  with the 6-cylinder inline 1,488cc supercharged engine derived from the Riley 9 engine. The car was driven in the race by A G (Sandy) Murray.

Monday, 22 June 2020

1935 Alfa Romeo 8C-35

This car competed in the HGPCA Pre '52 GP Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in August 1996.
It's the 1935 Alfa Romeo 8C-35 of Paul Grist and has an 8-cylinder 3,822cc engine with twin overhead camshafts. It was built to challenge the Mercedes Benz and Auto Union cars but rarely managed to get the better of them. The programme of the event said this about the car:

'The Alfa Romeo 8C-35 was introduced when the Tipo B Monoposto – or P3 as it is more popularly known – became overdue for replacement.  The P3 had itself been derived from the Monza and had flown the Alfa flag with great success between 1932 and 1935. The 8C-35 never beat the German cars in a top level Grand Prix, but did succeed in doing so in a number of smaller races, in the hands of the legendary Tazio Nuvolari.'



Here's Paul Grist at Luffield Corner during the race followed by two ERAs - R9B driven by Jost Wildbolz and Tony Merrick at the wheel of R1A.

Thursday, 5 December 2019

Silverstone Pit Lane

This is a photograph I took from the pit wall at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1994. It shows the competitors for the Chopard HGPCA 100-Mile GP car race going out for a practice session.
Leading the pack are three red Maserati 250Fs, from left to right Jeffrey Pattinson (no. 8) Burkhard von Schenk (no. 10) and Nigel Corner (no. 5). Number 23 just poking out of the pit garage on the left is the Cooper Bristol of Oliver Robinson  and the light green car in front of him is also a Cooper Bristol, that of Graham Burrows (no. 22). Coming out of the next pit garage is the Cooper T41 of Alan Miles (no. 14) and beyond that Paul Jaye's Alta (no. 18) has just left the garage. In front of Peter Jaye's car is another Alta, that of Ian Nuthall (no. 26), and behind that the Cooper Bristol of Paul Alexander (no. 19). The red car behind that Cooper is another Maserati 250F and it appears to have a number 7 which is shown in the programme as Robin Lodge's car, but he actually drove his Maserati 4CM in the  race (also number 7) and that is the red car at the end of the pit garages. The green car behind the three Maserati 250Fs is the Vanwall of John Harper (no. 1), and on the right behind that is another Maserati 250F which I can't identify as there were another five of these cars in the race. In the far distance is what appears to be ERA R1A or R3A, but there were three ERAs in the race, driven by Tony Merrick, Duncan Ricketts and Tony Stephens and the programme doesn't identify which ERAs those were.

Thursday, 16 May 2019

Four Connaughts and an ERA

All these cars lined up in the paddock outside the pit garages took part in the Chopard HGPCA 100-Mile Grand Prix Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1994.
Number 12 is the 1955 Connaught B-Type of Ean Pugh and is chassis B5. Behind that is car number 24, the 1952 Connaught A-Type of Bob Burrell, chassis A6, then next is the 1955 Connaught B-Type of Paul Burdell which is chassis B4. The fourth Connaught is the 1952 A-Type of Spike Milligan, chassis A7, and in the background car number 32 is the 1934 ERA R1A driven here by Tony Merrick.

Monday, 21 July 2014

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.