That Singer

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Sir,

Your Lancaster reader contacted me some time ago and I gave him most of the relevant history on his Singer. His car, as far as I know, is the only other one of its type in existence, the other one being in our Club (AVC 481). This was involved in a shunt at Silverstone and is off the road at the moment.

These cars were known as the Replica with an engine capacity of 972 c.c. and were in the team that got 1st, 3rd, 4th and 6th places in the 1,000 c.c. class at Le Mans in 1935. They also got 2nd in the Rudge Whitworth. At Brooklands in the same year they won the L.C.C. Relay Race at 85.13 m.p.h. A little while later in the T.T. they were involved in a spectacular processional pile-up. S. C. H. Davis, the driver of one of these cars, told me this was through the breakage of incorrectly hardened ball-joints. They survived this and come into the hands of the Auto Sports team’s Barnes Brothers – and went on to win the 1937 Tourist Trophy 1,100 C.C. class, being the first English car home in this event. In the same event in 1938, they were placed 2nd. After this they passed out of the Auto Sports into private hands and appeared here and there, such as Le Mans, 1939. This is just a few of the events in which they were successful.

As to the Singer Porlock, we have two members in the Club with this model, which is basically a Singer Junior, for which there are surprisingly a few spares still around.

I am enclosing a photograph of S. C. H. Davis sitting, once more, in a Singer Replica. This was taken recently at a Club Sprint. This car is in slightly modified Brooklands form.

JOHN A. HORNE, Spares Registrar, The Singer Owners’ Club.

Ash Vale.