Singer 1500 Ghia - Aigle

[airnwater]

Hi

Just wondering if any of the Singer 1500s bodied by Ghia-Aigle to
Michelotti designs survive ? particularly 1952 car....

Thanks for any information.

[Peter McKercher]

Glenn
I wish I knew. I am not aware of anyone who has one, but it's possible one is hidden in a collection somewhere. At least one came to the U.S., imported by Bill Vaughn.

What is your interest in the car

[mikeyr]

Maybe, there was glass bodied car in Ojai, Calif. about 3 years ago that I saw, it had a 4AD motor in it and it looked factory. It was behind a storage area and was never able to track down the owner. It had a Singer nameplate above a very small oval grill which is what caught my eye. It was still there last xmas when I went to visit my cousin but now was missing its windshield.

[Peter McKercher]

The Ghias would more than likely have been aluminum, not glass. It's possible the one you saw was a Devon body. It would be worth while to get a picture though.

[airnwater]

Glenn
I wish I knew. I am not aware of anyone who has one, but it's possible one is hidden in a collection somewhere. At least one came to the U.S., imported by Bill Vaughn.

What is your interest in the car

Hi
I am a fan of post war Italian coachwork on British chassis
such as Jaguar, MG ,etc, & I have seen photos of the Singers &
was curious if they had survived...........

[Peter McKercher]

Please let me know if you find one or any interesting pictures of one even. It's difficult to believe that they would all have been destroyed. The Ghia and Aigle cars were quite distinct and invariably would have ended up in a collector's hands rather than the common folks.

[mikeC]

Reviving this old thread!

I have long been fascinated by Italian stylists and coachbuilders, and have quite a sizeable file on all manner of cars; here is what I have on the Ghia Aigle Singers:

It seems likely that at least five cars were built between 1952 and 1954; the first car was shown at the 1952 Paris Show and the 1953 Geneva Show:



A second car was built around the same time and went to Bill Vaughan in the States, here seen on a Vaughan Motors stand (possibly New York); the photo is dated January 1953, so therefore this cannot be the Paris car which was still in Europe at the time:



Vaughan supposedly had a second car which he chopped off the roof, and this can be seen in the framed photo in the picture above, but in fact this was built as a convertible by Ghia, and is seen here outside the design studio in Switzerland:



This car may have gone to Bill Vaughan, or maybe the roof-chop story supports the theory that he had another coupe which he modified ...
In 1954 Ghia built two more coupes with a different frontal treatment, one of which may be the second Vaughan car:



Whatever happened, it seems that at least two cars went to the State and may yet be waiting to be re-discovered!



All Ghia bodies were steel, so a fibreglass bodied survivor is probably acar with an American Vibrin body.

[Peter McKercher]

Mike
Thanks for posting. A few questions:

How have you verified that two cars went to the US?
Where does the chopped roof rumor come from?
Are you speculating that if there was an American car surviving that it would be fibreglass aka vibrin

My feeling is that it is unlikely that Vaughan modified any of them, either chopping a roof or molding a glass body. He didn't really have the facilities to do anything substantial. The Glasspar body was done on the 3rd floor of his building and really required minimal effort to put together. Besides that. Vaughan was really more of an "off the shelf" guy. He scoured the world looking for cars he could essentially rebadge. Yes, he talked a lot about fibreglass production, but none of it ever materialized.

I too am keen on that ultimate barn find of a Ghia Singer. My guess is that the car(s) remained in the carriage house behind his Westchester home, but were cleared out when his wife LaVerne moved to California after Vaughan died. According to Vaughan's nephew Mike, there was quite a stable of them, although he couldn't remember which ones were there.

[mikeC]

I don't know where the chopped roof story came from, other than the mention in Kevin Atkinson's history; Vaughan clearly had one car, the dark coloured coupe, and reputedly had a second, convertible, car (ref Kevin Atkinson's book) for racing. Personally, if he had a second car then I believe that was the one-off Ghia convertible, not a chopped-down coupe.

No, any surviving Ghia car will be a steel-bodied car; mikeyr mentions a glass-bodied car in Ojai, Calif back in 2007; I am suggesting that is probably an American-bodied car, maybe a Vibrin.

Nothing verified, all speculation! But I am sure from photographic evidence that there were at least five Ghia-bodied cars. I suspect the story of a second Vaughan car may be based on that framed photo on display in the New York photo, and someone has assumed it was in Vaughan's possession, when in fact it was only a sales aid for the display and not even in the country!

[Peter McKercher]

I have brought forward much new information on Vaughan since Kevin wrote his book. I had heard the rumour that Vaughan brought a Ghia to the U.S., chopped it and raced it. However, a couple of things discount that. First, I have documented all the races that Vaughan was involved in and none of them include a Ghia in any form. Second, there were some very poor quality images of a Vaughan car that many thought was the Ghia and which Vaughan did race at Bridgehampton. However, as a result of my research, I found a number of much higher quality images of the car that proved it was not a Ghia , but a glass bodied Singer designed and built by Perry Fuller. Vaughan partnered with Fuller to bring the car to market by developing a print ad campaign and showing the car in the Vaughan Motors booth at the '53 international Sports Car Show in New York. It seems however, that Fuller did an end run on Vaughan and struck a deal with Singer Motors to use the car as a prototype for their SMX and the Vaughan/Fuller partnership dissolved shortly after the show. In a recent conversation with Vaughan's nephew, he referenced this relationship gone sour and that it had a major impact on his business.

With respect to the glass bodied Singer in Ojai, I suspect that this might have been an Allied body or any number of other kits that would have been designed to fit on either an MG or Singer.

[DGreen]

I recalled that one of the Ghias thought to relate to these cars, turned out o be a a gorgeous 1953 fiat Ghia that had been recently restored by Greg Kinzel in Calgary. While googling that story, I was flabberghasted to see that another Calgary collector (Fred Phillips) has two stunning Ghias of similar vintage - a v8 fiat ghia supersonic (1953) and 1954 Alfa 1900 Ghia. I wonder if either of those guys could shed some light on the location of a Singer Ghia?

[Peter McKercher]

Not as far as I know. Actually I supplied the Vaughan background on his car to Grant. The only info he had was that it had been imported by Vaughan.

[Peter McKercher]

I contacted Grant just to double check. He is/was not aware of these cars, despite what he says is his extensive record of the Ghias. He is also good friends with Fred and feels Fred is also unaware of them.