Eric David Thompson (4 November 1919 – 22 August 2015) was a British motor racing driver, book dealer and insurance broker.
He participated in sports car racing between 1949 and 1955 taking his greatest success by finishing third in the 1951 Les 24 Heures du Mans and took part in the 1952 RAC British Grand Prix.
Thompson worked as a broker for Lloyd’s of London. His racing career started in 1948, racing cars for HRG. He won the 1.5-litre class in the Les 24 Heures du Mans in 1949 and drove for Aston Martin driving a DB2 to third place in the 1951 24 Hours of Le Mans. He also drove in Formula Libre, RAC Tourist Trophy and Formula Two achieving minor success. He took part in his only Formula One race in the 1952 RAC British Grand Prix finishing fifth, and later spent more time working at Lloyd’s. He retired from motor racing at the end of 1955. Thompson resigned from Lloyd’s in the 1980s and became a dealer of rare books on motorsport. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Eric Thompson saw active service during the war as a captain with the 6th Armoured Division and then as a major commanding the 7th Armoured Brigade Signal Squadron in North Africa. Until 1946 he was commandant of the Central Mediterranean School of Signals near Padua.
After leaving the Army his first involvement in motor sport was driving a TB MG and a Ford V8 in trials and rallies, where he enjoyed some success.
In 1948 he was offered his first race with the British Racing Drivers’ Club team in the 12 Hours of Paris at Montlhéry. He and Robin Richards shared an HRG 1100cc and, despite suffering from concussion as a result of a road accident the night before, they placed fourth in the 1500cc class.
Following this he comissioned Monaco Motors to build him a car based on a damaged 1.5 litre HRG chasis he had bought from Charles Follet.
As he was working for Lloyd’s, it meant that he was limited to racing at weekends or during his fortnight’s holiday so his next race was the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1949. He and Jack Fairman took Eric’s lightweight HRG 1500cc to a class win and eighth overall and they would go on to win their class in the Spa-Francorchamps 24 Hours. Two victories followed at the Goodwood Handicap, plus he won his class in a 1 hour production car Race at Silverstone though at the end of the year he sold the car.
In the following year he became a member of the Aston Martin sports car team and stayed with them until 1954. His first race for them was at Silverstone’s Daily Express International One Hour Production Sports Car Race, where he led his class from the start, holding off Raymond Sommer and Reg Parnell, though finished fourth. He shared an Aston Martin DB2 (with John Gordon) at Le Mans but they retired with engine problems after only nine laps. Racing his HRG would see him take a class win (and second overall) in the 1 hour Production Car Race at Blandford, 3rd in a Goodwood Handicap and another class win (and 3rd overall) in the Cambridge University Sprint at Bedwell Hey and he also entered a 500cc F3 Cooper Vincent at Castle Combe.
In 1951’s Le Mans 24 Hours, he and Lance Macklin raced their DB2 to third overall and first in class and he drove an ex-works DB2 in the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod, finishing third in class and eighth overall. In this year he also finished fifth in a Cooper at the Lavant Cup at Goodwood, and drove a Bugatti T51 and Rob Walker’s ERA/Delage and Delahaye in Libre races.
In 1952 he drove in his third Le Mans race, driving an Aston Martin DB3 (with Reg Parnell) but retired from transmission problems and they suffered a further retirement from the Goodwood Nine Hours. During the year he drove a DB2 and took two victories in handicap events at Goodwood and one at Snetterton with a seventh and eighth at the same circuit. He later took third in class at the CUAC Bottisham Sprint plus took second, seventh and tenth in races at Snetterton, third at Boreham and Castle Combe driving an ERA/Delage and fifth in a private ERA at the British Grand Prix Libre event.
He also qualified ninth in a works Connaught (with a Lea-Francis engine) for the 1952 RAC British Grand Prix, and went on to finish fifth, ahead of 1950 World Drivers’ Champion Giuseppe Farina.
In 1953 he and Dennis Poore drove an Aston Martin DB3S at Le Mans, though retired after 182 laps with ignition failure. At the Goodwood Nine Hours race, he and Reg Parnell raced together there and for the first 169 laps everything went to plan. However, they suffered a puncture which delayed them but when they later made the last driver change the clutch would not disengage. Eric managed to rejoin the race and with 2 hours, 15 minutes to go, he was running fourth, four laps behind the leading Jaguar but he pushed hard and crossed the line at midnight to take the chequered flag. He and Parnell came second in the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod and in eight other races that year he took two F2 wins at Snetterton and finished second in a Connaught A3 in a Libre race.
He reduced his racing during 1954 though competed at Le Mans in a Lagonda DP115 (with Dennis Poore), but a crash put them out after 25 laps.
In 1955 he and Kenneth McAlpine drove a Connaught AL/SR in his final Le Mans race, retiring with engine problems after 60 laps, but they finished sixteenth in the Goodwood Nine Hours. Although his work commitments prevented him doing another full season, he served for four years as official timekeeper for Aston Martin at Le Mans.
His last competitive event was at the 1956 CUAC Sprint, in a 500cc Jason, in which he took a Class win but at the end of the year he announced his retirement.
He concentrated on his work at Lloyd’s, then retired from insurance in the 1980s and opened a bookshop, selling rare motor racing books.
He was honoured as the oldest surviving Le Mans driver when the Automobile Club de L’Ouest made him the inaugural inductee of its Hall of Fame in 2013.
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