Letters from readers, April 2004

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E-Type Tales

Sir,

Keith Howard’s article on the ERA E-Type in the February issue revived many memories. Ken Flint and Vern Edwards ran Autospeed Garage in Garston near Liverpool where I spent many evenings and weekends.

I was what nowadays is known as a gofer. In 1954 we ran the ERA Remus and after it was sold the remains of Peter Walker’s Isle of Man E-Type GP1 were acquired and rebuilt as a cycle-winged sportscar with a 3.4 litre Jaguar engine.

Thus the E-Type ERA was reborn and known as the ERA Jaguar. It was road registered with the number TKD 100.

While this car was not a great success as a sports racer it was certainly a very exciting road car.

We later on bought the other E-Type GP2 and it was being built up with a 2.4-litre Jaguar engine as a single-seater racing car. This project was never completed by Autospeed for racing as we went to the Connaught sale at Send in September 1957 and bought the Rob Walker B-Type No 84.

Autosport published a book titled Case History by Norman Smith and it has a full account of the E-Types including a section on the ERA Jaguar.

It says that the ERA Jaguar was built using the chassis from the burnt out GP1. This information can only have come from Ken or Vern at Autospeed and confirms my memory that we did not, as Keith Howard reckons, use a spare chassis.

Terry Harrison, Cheshire