primotipo…

‘Michael Turner painting of Raymond Mays at Shelsley Walsh in 1949 with his famous 2-litre ERA R4D‘…

Mays was the King of Shelsley Walsh from the 1920s to the late 1940s, taking numerous FTDs and outright records in this period. He was ERA’s founding force ‘which was the first commercial racing car maker in Great Britain in 1934 and the rock upon which Britain’s current billion dollar racing car industry is built,’ wrote Simon Lewis. Mays won the first two British Hillclimb Championships in 1947-48 aboard R4D.

More on ERA here: https://primotipo.com/2015/04/16/peter-whitehead-in-australia-era-r10b-1938/ The shot below shows Mays heading down the hill at Shelsley in R4D during his final appearance before retirement in September 1950.

Ray Mays at Donington during the April 9, 1938 Empire Trophy meeting, the first time this chassis appeared in ‘D-specification’ .

Of the rest of the articles within the April 1962 issue of Motor Racing I rather liked the coverage of Stirling Moss’ dominance of the Warwick Farm 100.

Credits…

Motor Racing April 1962, ERA Facebook Group, Adam Ferrington, Adam Wragg and Vlad Shnur Collections

Tailpiece…

While R4D features on the cover of the 1939 South African Grand Prix programme, it didn’t race.

Gigi Villoresi won the 18 lap race held on the 11 mile Prince George Circuit around East London aboard a Maserati 6CM, but the 15 starters included four ERAs: Roy Hesketh in R3A was fourth, Earl Howe R8B, fifth, while Peter Aitken raced R11B to seventh, with Peter Whitehead the only ERA DNF, he blew a piston on R10B. Perhaps the car was a little tired after its extensive tour of Australia – inclusive of an AGP win at Bathurst – throughout 1938.

Finito…