Just The Facts Ma'am...It's certainly not uncommon for the facts to get blurred or mistaken when you're dealing with rare marques like
Singer and 'experts' often make assumptions. Given the scarcity of information about these cars, it's not surprising perhaps, but when information is being
'archived for future reference', it begs the proper crossing of 'T"s and dotting of 'i's'.
This photo of an old familiar face appeared recently in an e-mail missive archived on singercars.com and, yes indeed it is my own car,
'Baby Blue' a
1936 Singer Le Mans Special Speed Model as seen in earlier posts of this blog...although I was not credited as the current owner in the actual archived message.
According to the message text, the photo was taken in
1949 at the
Cal Club Time Trials in
Van Nuys, California and the car was driven by
David Addison, further credence to the car's early competition history. It was owned at the time - and likely purchased new (
although more on this in a later post!) - by a
Miss Irene Fergusen of
San Diego who emigrated to the
Middle East probably
late in 1952. By then, she had clocked up about
60,000 miles in the car. Irene must have been quite a character!
The car is claimed to be in it's
'original darker hue' (of blue) which is incorrect. British lacquer paint and leather trim did not fare well in the California climate and a few years is all one could expect. It had been painted
black during Irene's ownership and had been upgraded with chrome bumpers and tan canvas spare tyre covers. This is confirmed by areas of
black paint that survive under the present
light blue, along with traces of
red paint, with the
factory original light blue appearing under all.
The
Singer was purchased by
Jack Burkhard- not
'Burkhardt'- in the
fall of 1951 after Irene had left the country. In the
spring of 1952, Jack painted the car a two-tone red and 'souped up' the engine for more competition work. Jack was a friend of the gang that produced
Road & Track magazine at the time. They were all true sports car enthusiasts and so he was asked to provide the car for a feature in the
March 1953 edition of the magazine. After Jack sold the car in
late 1953, it was repainted back to the
original light blue by the next owner,
William Smith, who ran
British Motor Works in
La Jolla.
The
Singer Owner's Club in the
UK confirms this car as being one of the three
Singer Nine Le Mans that were officially imported into
North America prior to the second world war, so it never had a British registration number. Amazingly, I purchased the
Singer with only
67,000 miles on it and am most probably the fifth owner. Most of the cars history is pretty much known from new and I have been in communication with the family that owned the dealership that imported the car (and who supplied photos of it when new) as well as
John Burkhard, son of Jack, who also supplied photos taken during his Dad's ownership. John actually learnt to drive in the
Singer and used it as daily transport for a while.
The car was shipped new to
British Columbia,
Canada for
Revecomb Motors, either to their
Vancouver or
Victoria office. The
Singer then lived most of it's life in
California, first in
San Diego, then
Los Angeles, then
La Jolla, then back to
San Diego. Tom Turner purchased the
Singer from William Smith in late 1961 and shipped the car with him when he moved east to
Chicago. There it stayed, mostly in storage, along with Tom's other cars, until I purchased it from his wife
Betty. Tom had passed away and it was very important to Betty that the car went to someone who would really care for it, a caveat of the sale being that they had first refusal to buy it back!
I still keep in regular touch with Betty Turner and she enjoys hearing about the exploits of the
'Little (light!) Blue Car'!Photo courtesy www.singercars.comPlease show good manners and ask permission to use any photos or text from this blog - Thanks!
