Forgotten Classics: Singer Le Mans and 1500, and the HRG Twin Cam

England's Singer Motors began when George Singer began making bicycles in 1874.  As the turn of the century approached, he got interested in motorcycles and three wheelers, and finally moved into car manufacturing in 1905.  Most Americans see that name and think "sewing machine", but those came from the unrelated American Charles Singer, though for awhile in the early 1920s he made cars too, just to confuse things.  By 1926 the English Singer Motors had done something that would've endeared them to car enthusiasts everywhere, if only Singer had let them know...they introduced a small four-cylinder engine with valve actuation by a single overhead cam.  This was pretty advanced stuff in 1927; BMW, to name one example, didn't get around to introducing this feature until 1962.  Soon Singer was Britain's third largest car producer, after Austin and Morris. By 1934, the 972cc ohc 4 (with only 2 main bearings) used to power the mass-market economy cars also powered the Nine Le Mans model. There was also a 6-cylinder 1.5 liter car called simply the Le Mans, and one of these won the rally run in conjunction with the 1936 Berlin Olympics, piloted by Betty Haig.  By 1937 a limited number of 1.5 liter 4 cylinder cars were also built*.   The Le Mans was about as rakish as Singers ever got...

Singer Le Mans 1.5 liter, 1934

As the Depression took hold, however, rakishness didn't help much, and neither did Singer's relative lack of skill at promotion, something that was more in evidence over at Morris Garages, maker of rival MG, and at the new upstart Jaguar works.  Singer went bankrupt in 1936 and was reorganized.  Postwar, they continued to offer their overhead cam engine in the 9 Roadster with around 1,100 cc, and in 1952 this was uprated to the 1,500 cc unit from their sedan, which itself resembled a 3/4 size version of the first postwar Kaiser and Frazer cars.  The sedan failed to make an impression Stateside, but the Roadster showed up at races and rallies, and Singer engines were used in the HRG, which was to Singer as ERA was to Riley.  Or to use a more familiar example, as Abarth was to Fiat.

                                              Singer 9 Roadster, produced 1939-55

The Roadster didn't sell nearly as well as the MG TD in America, even though it was a bit more practical, having 2 more seats.  Performance and price were competitive, so the sales people put the anemic sales down to the Roadster's somewhat chubbier proportions; it was merely cute where the MG was rakish.  American dealers made at least two attempts to rebody the car in fiberglass. Around the same time, Ghia-Aigle, the Swiss branch of Italy's Carrozzeria Ghia, began to build a small series of Michelotti-styled coupes and convertibles on Singer chassis. This arrangement helped sell a few Singers in Switzerland, because if a car was bodied by a Swiss coach builder, the buyer paid no import tax on the chassis. The first of these appeared at the Paris Auto Show in 1952, a fastback festooned with embryonic fins, a two tone color scheme, and a beaky, de-chromed version of the traditional radiator grille.

                               1952 Singer coupe by Ghia-Aigle

Monochrome versions of the fastback coupe followed, and by 1954 Ghia-Aigle produced a lower, sleeker convertible with roll-up windows and exterior decoration pared down to essentials...

1954 Singer 1500 cabriolet by Ghia-Aigle

The glassy notchback coupe below appeared the same year, and provides more evidence that a truly modern product could be built around the Singer chassis.  Their total production figures are elusive, but unlikely to have broken into double digits.

   1954 Singer 1500 Ghia-Aigle coupe

Meanwhile, back in the Mother Country, HRG had plans of its own.  Their upright, rigid-axle roadsters had been a favorite of club racers since 1935, using largely unmodified Singer fours, but now they'd developed a prototype with their own twin-cam head mounted on the SM 1500 block, along with 4-wheel hydraulic caliper disc brakes made by HRG, 4-wheel independent suspension and a choice of 4 or 5 speeds... 

    Singer-HRG 1500 Twin Cam Engine

Even the alloy wheels were a break with tradition, and in place of the tall, spindly look of the HRG and Singer Le Mans, the alloy shell of the new car wrapped the contents so closely that twin bonnet blisters were needed to clear the cam covers...an altogether tasty and enlightened piece of design. But Singer management has having none of it. Cash was running low, and in 1955 Singer merged with Rootes Motors, makers of Hillman, Sunbeam and Humber.  The supply of Singer engine blocks dried up, and HRG was able to make only 3 "production" versions of the new Twin Cam by the end of 1956.  Along with the prototype, they are the last true sports cars with Singer engines.  By 1957, Singer had become nothing more than a "badge-engineered" sedan with a pushrod Hillman engine.  And after a brief moment of thinking otherwise, Americans went back to linking the name to sewing machines and nothing else.

    1955-56 HRG Twin Cam

*Footnote 6-20-19:  A reader kindly wrote to comment that the 1.5 liter Le Mans that won the Olympic rally was the six-cylinder car; my source of specs. on Singer engines (William Boddy, in the Sportscar Pocket Book from 1961) points out that by 1937 there were also some 1.5 liter four-cylinder cars, but these were made in only a limited run.

Photo credits:

Top:  wikimedia

2nd:  classiccarcatalogue.com

3rd:  coachbuild.com/forum

4th:  ghia-aigle.info/cars.htm

5th:  coachbuild.com/forum

6th:  bonhams.com

7th:  motors.all-free-photos.com