BTM TALK – ERA R4D
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Speaker James ‘Mac’ Hulbert with his book (Gareth Tarr).
Hulbert in R4D in 2012 at Monaco (Gareth Tarr).
size, when the equivalent Bugatti cost well over £2,000.
T
he 2017 BTM talks season began on a cold January evening, the topic being the history
of just one car. When that car is an ERA and has such a distinguished history as R4D then it is understandable that narrator James ‘Mac’ Hulbert could easily fill nearly two hours on the subject.
English Racing Automobiles (ERA) came about
as a result of a car known as the ‘White Riley’ developed by Raymond Mays and his brilliant, self-taught engineer friend Peter Berthon. The performance of this car came to the attention of industrialist Humphrey Cook who agreed to finance a new British car to take on the mighty red cars that dominated the voiturette class of rac- ing, the grade below grand prix. Murray Jamieson designed the supercharger and Reid Railton the chassis, which was constructed by Thompson and Taylor at its Brooklands-based works. R1A was the first completed car and it was demonstrated for the first time at Brooklands by Mays on 22nd May 1934, made its competition début at the Isle of Man a week later and was back in Surrey on 23rd June for the British Empire Trophy in the hands of Mays and Cook, where it finished, but unclassified. In total 17 ERAs of the original type were built and they became the leading voiturette racers of the mid-1930s, appearing at Brooklands many times with most successes being on the Campbell and Mountain circuits. The ERA was priced at £1,500 to £1,850, depending on engine
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R4D actually started life as R4B (the suffixes A, B, C etc denote the chassis type) and was completed in July 1935 as a two-litre works car, the first ERA to use a Zoller-type supercharger which increased power by 50-60bhp. It made its début at that month’s German Grand Prix driven by Mays and Ernst von Delius. This race was famously won by Italian maestro Tazio Nuvolari whose Alfa Romeo was supposedly out-classed by the mighty Mercedes and Auto-Unions. R4B was to make its Brooklands début in October that year again with Raymond Mays behind the wheel. He was to be the car’s principal driver up to World War II (and owner from 1939). For 1937 R4B was converted to C specification, the key change being the adoption of trailing-arm independent front suspension to a Dr Porsche design. ERA’s most successful year was probably 1937, but it was a constant battle to keep ahead of main rival Maserati. Hence the following year R4C was up- graded again, to D specification, a new boxed-in and lightened chassis being the key development. Pressure on space excludes a full description of R4D’s Brooklands history here, but one notable achievement was the Campbell Circuit record which Mays set on 8th August 1939 at 77.79mph. Its success continued post-war, Mays winning the 1947 and 1948 RAC Hill Climb Championships.
Ron Flockhart bought R4D in 1952 and did well over the next two years before graduating to
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