In our continuing series of scans from my family photo album/shoe box, we present this nice Singer Nine Roadster. Someone in my family ancestry had an eye for cars; I think the young ladies were merely incidental to the photo!
The 4AD was the export version of the 4AB model sold to the British home market, and it had a short-stroke 1.5-liter, four-cylinder engine making 48 hp as opposed to the home-market 1.1-liter four making 37hp. A twin-carb version, designated the Singer Nine SM1500 and making 58 hp, was offered from 1953-55; it was unclear from my source whether this was offered to the export market. These generally were sold against the MG TD, Austin A40 Sports, Sunbeam Alpine and Triumph TR2. Only 3,440 were produced, so finding one today would be pretty special.
The optional bumper overriders make this a 1952 or later car. Tom covered a bit of Singer’s (later) history here if you want to learn more about this marque.
Ed …. do you know where this photo was taken?
No idea, although the palm trees in the background would suggest Florida. There were quite a few beach photos in the shoebox from this same time period.
I wondered if it was California … the buildings and landscaping have that look also. My parents had a ’54 Hillman Minx in California (bought new) and at a young age I saw a few other Rootes products (pre-tailfin Sunbeam Alpine roadsters, and later Singer Gazelles) but I don’t recall ever seeing one of these.
Rare car on any piece of the planet, any idea on what happened to it?
Nope. The photo wasn’t dated, and I don’t recognize the young ladies as any Aunts or Uncles I knew. My guess it was just a spur-of-the-moment “photo opportunity.”
This is an awesome find! Probably less than 10 of these cars remaining in North America… who knows, maybe this one is still around. These pictures you’ve been posting are an amazing study of the diverse vehicular landscape of the 1950’s. Compare this with the Chevrolet posted yesterday… Wikipedia quotes a The Motor test of a 1951 4AD with the twin carb 1.5l, which did 0-60 in over 23 seconds and topped out at 73MPH. The Chevy could probably do the same, but I’m sure this felt like a Ferrari compared to it. And then there’s the Caravelle jetliner which must have looked like something from 100 years into the future next to either of them.
This pretty much has to be California as hydrangeas, the bushes growing against the background buildings likely wouldn’t grow in the heat of Florida, deodar cedars either, come to think of it. Unlike many here, I’m not too susceptible to nostalgia, yet this picture moves me deeply with a sense of lost California; the beauty of the buildings, the women with their smiling faces and yes, the cars, but most of all the absence of both traffic and too many people. What a golden time and place that was…… Thank you for posting this lovely picture and for the “remembrance of things past”.
It could have been California, although my family usually vacationed in Florida… this was pre-interState days, you know!
Everyone here thinks sewing machines when they hear the name. I doubt it’s even the same people. Interestingly enough (maybe only to me) there was also a singer air conditioner when I was new to that trade.
Looks like something fun to drive.
Correct – two different companies. Interestingly, the furnace I cut up to remove from our cellar five years ago was from Singer (the sewing machine company, not Singer Motors), and dated from the early 1970s.
Ed, that CC on the Singer Gazelle was written by James Pembroke Tenneson. I did do a CC on the related AUDAX Sunbeam Rapier, however: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/curbside-classic-1964-sunbeam-rapier-series-iv-a-saucier-minx/
Oh, and that Singer roadster is a beaut!
My Mom got one in 1960 from her Dad for her 16th Birthday he had installed a Ford
60 V8 (Full Race) from a midget racer in it. They lived in Barstow, CA I am sure it has been sold several times and who knows what became of it, wish I had it today.
A pity Singer did not retain its position as the UK’s 3rd largest carmaker, later effectively the 2nd largest following the formation of BMC.
Wonder though if a well capitalized independent Singer would have stuck with the OHC layout or temporarily switched to OHVs in the post-war period, along with being able to put about equivalents of the Morris Minor, Austin A30 and Standard 8 at the lower end of the range. With Singer quickly introducing a new range of short-stroke engines with or without an OHC layout upon the tax horsepower system bring dropped in 1947 as opposed to its rivals who typically used long-stroke engines (who were still influenced by the long-stroke layout the 1950s-1960s long after the tax horsepower system was dropped).
Would have been interesting if this well capitalized Singer managed to acquire Riley instead of Morris to cover the upper end of the range (topped by a 4.9-litre V8 via a pair of 2.5-litre Big Fours), with the company later becoming involved with Aston Martin (potentially acquiring the former after the David Brown era) and Alvis.
Apparently in real-life Alvis approached Singer to produce the TA350 bodies after Pressed Steel doubled the tooling costs and increased the minimum production run to 100 cars a week. Though Singer gave a quote that was less than Pressed Steel’s and was prepared to make just 40 bodies per week, its reluctance to quote an individual body production price was what ultimately cost it the contract and led to Alvis cancelling the TA350 as the costs of the project grew just as it was ready to be signed off for production (being due to appear in 1956).
What if a well capitalized Singer instead got involved with the TA175/TA350 project at the beginning, so a more conventional version would form the basis of a new Riley featuring a new generation of engines (say a 2.25-2.5-litre+ 60-degree V6 derived from the 1950s Lagonda DP100 V12, 2.5 Aston-Martin inline-4 DP208 as fitted to a Volvo P1800 or another engine)?
Admittingly there are a myriad of paths an alternate Singer could have gone down and would have probably felt acquiring Riley and working with Aston-Martin to be unnecessary, yet it would have been interesting seeing how the marque would evolve.