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.com

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