Raymond Mays

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Motor Racing Memorial in Bourne

Thomas Raymond Mays (born August 1, 1899 in Bourne , Lincolnshire , † January 6, 1980 ibid) was a British racing driver and entrepreneur.

Until 1917 he attended school in Oundle , where he met Amherst Villiers . After serving with the grenadiers in France , he enrolled at Christ's College , Cambridge . He enjoyed going to the theater in London and watching Jean Borotra play tennis.

Racing career

Mays played a crucial role in building up the British racing teams ERA and BRM. These companies' workshops were both located directly behind his house in Bourne. His goal throughout his life was to see his homeland at the forefront of international motorsport. These ambitions did not always correspond to the technical and financial possibilities and finally culminated in the failure of the BRM-V16 project .

Mays' racing career lasted about 30 years, driving in different cars: a 1½ liter Hillman Speed ​​model, two 1½ liter Bugattis , an (unsuccessful) supercharged AC , the Vauxhall- Villiers, Mercedes , Invictas , Rileys and ERAs. Mays was known for his races at Shelsey Walsh in the early 1920s , which he contested with two Brescia Bugattis called Cordon Bleu and Cordon Rouge . A well-known picture of "Cordon Bleu" was taken in 1924 during the hill climb on Caerphilly Mountain. He developed his cars with compressors from Amherst Villiers from the AC to the Vauxhall-Villiers to the famous "White Riley" , from which the ERAs were later developed.

In 1929 Raymond Mays drove the hill climb at Shelsey Walsh in a Vauxhall-Villiers with double rear wheels, according to Mays "the first time that a car equipped in this way took part in a hill climb". He broke the speed record and as a result this innovation was copied many times.

Mays drew attention to himself in racing events such as the 1935 German Grand Prix , which Tazio Nuvolari won, where he shared his ERA with Ernst von Delius . The ribbon on the wreath of this race can be seen in the Raymond Mays room at the Bourne Heritage Center .

Mays was one of the most famous ERA drivers, winning the British Hill Climbing Cup in his black ERA 4RD in the first two years, 1947 and 1948, as well as the Brighton Speed ​​Trials in 1946, 1947, 1948 and 1950. The 1950 season ended he started racing.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Mays manufactured tuning parts for the British Ford four and six-cylinder engines, including an aluminum cylinder head designed by Mays' colleague at ERA and BRM, Peter Berthon . These parts were installed in Ford, AC and Reliant automobiles .

Publications

  • Raymond Mays & Dennis May: Split Seconds: My Racing Years . GT Foulis & Co. Ltd. (1952). 306 pages.
  • Raymond Mays & Peter Roberts: BRM Cassell & Co. Ltd. London (1962). 240 pages.

Raymond Mays 20 hp

Raymond Mays 20 hp (1939)

From 1938 to 1939, Shelsley Motors in Bourne (Lincolnshire) built a convertible in a few copies based on the standard V8 , which bore the name Raymond Mays'. The elegant car had a side-controlled V8 engine with 2.7 l displacement, which delivered 85 bhp (62.5 kW) power at 5000 rpm. A four-door sedan was also planned on the chassis with a 2819 mm wheelbase and a track width of 1321 mm, but only a one-off piece was created - if at all. The Second World War ended production.

Web links

Commons : Raymond Mays 20 hp  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Motor Sport , December 1941, p. 488
  2. ^ The Brooklands Gazette , June 1925, p. 467
  3. ^ The Brooklands Gazette , July 1925, p. 22
  4. ^ Motor Sport , September 1951, p. 499
  5. ↑ Photo of the "Cordon Bleu" at prewarcar.com ( Memento from July 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ^ Motor Sport , December 1941, p. 489
  7. ↑ Dick Salmson: BRM: A Mechanic's Tale . Veloce Publishing plc. Dorchester (2007), p. 51
  8. ^ Peter Berthon Report to Death . The Times. 20th January 1971
  9. ^ David Culshaw & Peter Horrobin: The Complete Catalog of British Cars 1895-1975 . Veloce Publishing plc. Dorchester (1999). ISBN 1-874105-93-6
personal data
SURNAME Mays, Raymond
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mays, Thomas Raymond
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British racing car driver and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH August 1, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Bourne (Lincolnshire)
DATE OF DEATH January 6, 1980
Place of death Bourne (Lincolnshire)