Web Forum for Singer Cars

My pleasure D'arcy. It's probably one of my all time favourites with classic '50s neon signage and a space that showed the humble beginnings of the sports car market in North America. Note the Schaeffer's name below Vaughan Singer Motors with an arrow directing the customer to the back side of the building. Schaeffers was sub contracted to do all VSM's dealer prep and customer service. John Martin worked behind their parts counter to look after the Singer component of the business. Below is the Schaeffers Service area and parts counter. Note this was not exclusively a Singer service centre, but catered to a number of foreign makes.

Any idea what is mounted to the front bumper of the Singer in the garage photo. It looks too high for a badge bar. Surely it isn't a brush guard.

Mark Thompson

Hard to say, Mark. It could be a badge bar, although as you say it is quite high. It certainly doesn't do a lot for the Singer image.

I've looked at a lot of old photos of Singers and I think I've seen three variations of what I would call extremely tall, oversized bumperettes. The one that Mark was asking about appears to be identical to the one on a car (possibly the Vaughn-Singer Vibrin Roadster) in an article about the SMX by Phillip Avis for Forgotten Fiberglass. It's a closer picture and it does appear to be a badge bar/grill guard of some sort. It looks outrageously tall on a the 4A(?) roadster in the picture Peter posted, but no so ridiculous on the Vibrin, which appears to be a larger looking car.

From Earl Gandel regarding the large bar on the 4AD "Don't know for sure, but it looks like what we would have called in Australia a Bull Bar, to protect those very vulnerable upright chrome strips. (Mostly from Coyotes in Southern California.)"

D'Arcy
Further to 4 AD colour combos, another popular option which I have seen on a number of Singer racers was the front wing flash as seen below on the cars of Norm Berry (blue car racing at Chino) and Jim Mourning (at Santa Barbara). It adds a little pizazz, although I really am more partial to the Lamoreaux/Gardner style that seems to lower and lean out the roadster body. It would be a cool scheme to replicate.

That's interesting. I had looked at the picture of the number 54 car a few times and always thought that the wing flashes were simply masking tape added to protect the paintwork from gravel and debris during the race, much the same as the on the headlights of many of the cars and the rad shell of one of the cars. In fact, I'd suspected that the numbers on the 54 car were also done in two colours of tape, easily removable for later street use.

D'Arcy
Another variation on colours. This one is Bing Crosby's nephew Jack. Note also the mesh grill. As you know, this was standard on the pre war Nines, but I have seen several 4 ADs given the same treatment, Jack Martin's being the most prominent.