My Singer Roadster 4AD

My Singer Roadster was first registered on 31 May 1955 to a Michael Kidd of West Bridgport, near Nottingham. The chassis and engine number were 4AD 33657 - I reckon therefore it was the 20th of only 95 made in that year (only one was made in 1956). Its original registration, later sold, was 246 CTW. The roadster was sold to a Peter Limer in 1963, who sold it on in 1964 to help start his own business, to Peter Guilor, still all in the Nottingham area. A Reverend Timothy Barker purchased it in 1966 and it remained in his family for quite a while. He sold it in 1974 to a John Gale of Thrapstone who then sold it to Kevin Goble of Eastleigh, Hants. I have quite a lot of history at the time of Timothy Barker including an invoice showing petrol at 6 shillings and two pence a gallon!! In a letter to former owner Bob Andrew, Timothy Barker says that the MOT certificate (which I have) for 1969 records a mileage of just 3,995, by 1986 it was 13,000. The 1987 certificate shows a mileage of 97, so a new speedo seems to have been installed. I therefore suspect that the true mileage is 13,000 over the present reading of just under 30,000 - not bad for a 50 year old car. Kevin Goble sold it to Bob Andrew of Battle (well know in Singer circles in the UK) in April 1985 for £2,000. It would seem that at about this time its original registration was sold and it was re-registered as VSV 816. It also had an engine change - I understand from Bob Andrew that a SM engine was fitted that came from an HRG (the last 12 HRG's had the SM instead of the Singer 12 engine) - and today it is still VSV 816 and has engine number 767Y. Major mechanical work was done in 2000, I believe by Trevor Cornelius, to just about everything and it has only done around 5,000 miles since then. I bought the car from Bob Andrew in May 2002, via Jim Thompson - the owner of Pioneer Automobiles. As a result of that purchase I started to produce his web-site, featuring lots of classic cars for sale, which I still maintain for Jim. Bob owned three Roadsters at the time, and by the time I got to Pioneer Automobiles his red 4ADT had just been sold. Luckily Bob decided to sell me his Coronation Blue 4AD which is now in my proud possession. My car VSV816 is compared with a MG YT in an article entitled Seaside Specials which appeared in Classic and Sportscar October 1986.

The car is very solid throughout and largely original. The only alterations, in addition to the number plate and engine swap, already mentioned, have been the substitution of winking lights for trafficators (good safety sense) and a higher ratio rear axle (4.1:1 instead of 4.8:1) for easier cruising. This also causes the mileometer to under-read by 7-8% despite attempts to fix this. It is a feature I would like to incorporate in my X Type Jaguar which does far too much mileage! I have added a period Radiomobile Model 200 Valve Radio which I picked up in an autojumble for £30. Imagine my delight when I wired it up, waited what seemed like an eternity for the valves to warm up, and then heard Music from 198 Longwave.

Why did I chose a Singer? I was looking for something to replace my first hobby car - a 1983 VW Golf GTI Convertible. The Golf had two things I wanted that were hard to find - it was convertible and it had four seats (I have two girls aged 10 and 12 and we wanted to be able to have family outings). The Triumph Stag was too young (and unreliable); MGs of the period were mainly 2 seaters and out of my price bracket. I went classic car hunting one lunch-time, visiting a major classic car dealer (Malcolm C. Elder & Son) near to my office in Oxford. I didn't really know what I was looking for but fell in love with a Singer Roadster 4ADT - it went really well, looked great in British Racing Green but was rather tatty around the edges. I decided to look elsewhere but at least and now had an idea of what I wanted. I was taken with the looks, the build quality, basic simplicity and the fun they are to drive.