ERA was established in November 1933 by Humphrey Cook, Raymond Mays, and Peter Berthon, based in Bourne, Lincolnshire, next to Eastgate House, the Mays family home. Cook provided the financial backing from the wealth of his family's London drapery business. Berthon handled overall car design, while Mays became the principal driver, having already raced Vauxhalls, Bugattis, and Rileys to notable effect.
Rather than attempting the prohibitively expensive full Grand Prix class, the founders targeted the voiturette category — 1500cc supercharged — which was effectively the Formula 2 equivalent of its era. The chassis was designed by Reid Railton, whose previous credits included the Bluebird land speed record cars for Malcolm Campbell, and was built by Thomson & Taylor at Brooklands.
The engine drew on the proven Riley six-cylinder unit, heavily modified with a forged crankshaft, a new aluminium cylinder head, and a bespoke supercharger designed by Murray Jamieson. It was offered in three capacities: 1088cc for the 1100cc class, 1488cc for the 1500cc class, and up to 1980cc for the 2000cc class. Running on methanol, the 1500cc version produced around 180–200 bhp.
The first ERA, chassis R1A, was unveiled at Brooklands on 22 May 1934. After initial chassis handling difficulties were resolved, the car proved potent. By the end of 1934 ERAs were scoring victories against established marques, and in 1935 at a major race at the Nürburgring, ERAs took first, third, fourth, and fifth places. With drivers of the calibre of Dick Seaman, ERA effectively dominated voiturette racing through the latter half of the 1930s.
The B-Type, introduced in 1935 with minimal changes from the A-Type, was among the most numerous variants with 13 cars built. Perhaps the most famous ERA team of the era was that of the two Siamese princes, Chula Chakrabongse and Bira Birabongse, whose trio of ERAs — named Hanuman, Romulus, and Remus — operated from The White Mouse Garage in Hammersmith. Prince Chula owned and managed the team; Prince Bira drove.
The C-Type of 1937 brought suspension revisions including new trailing-arm front suspension with transverse torsion bars and hydraulic dampers, replacing the previous leaf springs. An E-Type appeared just before the Second World War but was not fully developed before hostilities halted European motor racing entirely.
When racing resumed in the late 1940s, ERA's original founders Mays and Berthon had moved on to the British Racing Motors (BRM) project. The company restarted under new ownership in 1947 when Leslie Johnson acquired ERA together with the E-Type GP2.
Johnson campaigned GP2 in several significant events. It tied with Reg Parnell's Maserati for fastest lap in the 1948 British Empire Trophy. After posting the fastest time in opening practice for the 1948 British Grand Prix, Johnson retired from third place on the first lap when a driveshaft universal joint failed. Results were promising but consistently interrupted by mechanical fragility. Ultimately a fire destroyed GP1 during the 1950 British Empire Trophy on the Isle of Man.
ERA's most ambitious postwar effort was the G-Type, designed to compete in the 1952 World Championship run under Formula Two rules. The fundamental design was laid down by Robert Eberan-Eberhorst — one of the world's leading theorists of racing car design, previously at Auto Union where he had replaced Ferdinand Porsche and designed the Auto Union Type D — with completion handled by his protégé David Hodkin. The spaceframe used magnesium tubes; suspension was by double wishbones and coil springs at the front and a de Dion rear axle; power came from a modified Bristol engine.
Stirling Moss drove the G-Type but found the engine unreliable and results deeply disappointing. Moss later commented that it was "a project which made an awful lot of fuss about doing very little." Johnson sold the project to Bristol, who used it as the basis for their own Le Mans class-winning efforts in the mid-1950s.
Johnson eventually sold the company to Zenith Carburettor Ltd, which was later acquired by Solex. Though renamed Engineering Research and Application Ltd and operating primarily as an R&D firm, the ERA name surfaced once more in the 1980s on an ERA Mini Turbo, a turbocharged version of the classic Mini.
Almost all prewar ERAs survive, with continuous and verifiable provenance. The cars remain active in historic motorsport events, particularly associated with the Shelsley Walsh hillclimb — where Raymond Mays won the first two British Hill Climb Championships in 1947 and 1948. An ERA has long held the Shelsley Walsh hill record for a prewar car.
ERA's achievement was significant: a small British constructor, working on a modest budget, produced machinery that commanded continental European voiturette racing for the better part of a decade, and which proved durable enough that drivers and enthusiasts are still campaigning the original cars nearly a century later.