Barn find 52 4AD

[Phillip]

Hi Gerrardo,

Congratulations on the restoration of your Singer and welcome to the board.

Gerrado_Singer_4A_WEB.jpg (67.9 KiB) Viewed 72468 times

Looking at your car, it is actually a 4A, not an A Series, which means that it would be a 1950 or 1951. The A Series was produced from 1946 to 1949.

The clues are the lack of scuttle vents, the windshield locking hardware, the headlamps and the 4 speed gearbox. The upholstery is also to the pattern and design of the 4A.

Hope that helps!

Enjoy the car!

[wmcvey]

White was not a factory colour for the 4AD, but there were a few different blues.The nicest in my opinion was Coronation Blue, which was a very fine metallic and looked very nice with the gray interior that it came with.

I didn't think so either. But the mystery deepens as the archived records I got from the "Coventry Transport Museum" with copies of the "4AD Roadster Register" page of my car number for Singer states the car was "Oriental Blue" with Beige Trimming. What does it mean by Trimming ? It's not referring to the upholstery, is it ? Because the upholstery is more like a maroon color.

[Phillip]

Hi William,

I am going to assume that the information you received from the museum references the Roadster factory record cards that were saved. The "trim" or "trimming" refers to the interior seats, door panels and carpets. I don't recall a paint code called "Oriental Blue", but I can check through my records to see if I have the '52 brochure. I'm pretty sure I do. I think that I have posted that information elsewhere on the board in the past as well.

It would appear to me that your car has been renovated or restored in the past. Judging from the photo, the interior has been redone and the seats reupholstered.The pleats and design are not the original factory style. Both red and burgundy were colours used by Singer for their interiors.

Further proof of a renovation would be the running boards that have been covered with some sort of rubber. The original had thin rubber strips with chrome end caps.

Hope that helps...

[NUEVAJ100]

Thanks Phillip,
Yes 1950 as per VIN Plate
Cheers,
Gerardo

[Phillip]

Yep! The 4A prefix and T suffix make it a '50 4A.
I recall that my '50 was 4A-5142-T. Thaf was a long time ago!

[wmcvey]

Hi William,

I am going to assume that the information you received from the museum references the Roadster factory record cards that were saved. The "trim" or "trimming" refers to the interior seats, door panels and carpets. I don't recall a paint code called "Oriental Blue", but I can check through my records to see if I have the '52 brochure. I'm pretty sure I do. I think that I have posted that information elsewhere on the board in the past as well.

It would appear to me that your car has been renovated or restored in the past. Judging from the photo, the interior has been redone and the seats reupholstered.The pleats and design are not the original factory style. Both red and burgundy were colours used by Singer for their interiors.

Further proof of a renovation would be the running boards that have been covered with some sort of rubber. The original had thin rubber strips with chrome end caps.

Hope that helps...
[/quote]
At least figured out the color originally being blue, I never really took notice being the cars either been in a barn or a my storage unit. But now I do see the car was repainted by looking in the boot area. Not sure the blue color comes through in these pics, but wish it was this nice blue color instead of white. Maybe one day I'll get her painted back to the same blue shade.

[Phillip]

Hi William

I am pretty sure your car was Salvador Blue with beige upholstery. A colour scheme introduced with the 4AB

[wmcvey]

Hi William

I am pretty sure your car was Salvador Blue with beige upholstery. A colour scheme introduced with the 4AB

Here's where I'm getting the "Oriental Blue" wordage, see pics. The pencil mark is my car number on this register.
It could very well be the same shade, and the company just changed the name of the color in the sales literature.

[mikeyr]

The interior or “trim” was beige with the piping the body color. In the gallery are pics of my 4AD with interior very closely copied from original

[Peter McKercher]

Vaughan Singer Motors (California) Dealer photo from 1952

[wmcvey]

Vaughan Singer Motors (California) Dealer photo from 1952


singer_blue 001 (2).jpg

Yes, that looks like the exact color that I see in the boot area of my car. Wish it was that instead of white.
Did the photo or ad mention the name of the color ? And is there a color code to go by if and when someone wants to go back to the original color ?
And thank you for taking the time to locate the photo and posting it.

[Peter McKercher]

It was called Coronation Blue in 1953, the year Queen Elizabeth was crowned. For 1952, there was a different name which I can't recall, definitely not Oriental ,and it may have been a slightly different colour. John Lewis has a 4AD which was recently painted this colour. I'm sure he would have code for it.

[wmcvey]

It was called Coronation Blue in 1953, the year Queen Elizabeth was crowned. For 1952, there was a different name which I can't recall, definitely not Oriental ,and it may have been a slightly different colour. John Lewis has a 4AD which was recently painted this colour. I'm sure he would have code for it.

Phillip from below thought it was "Salvador Blue", but if you look at the page copied from the production registry I uploaded below, it does say "Oriental Blue" for my car number ? So like I was thinking, the manufacturer could have had a name they used, but that was changed to suit the American market ? Just thinking out loud, don't know that for sure by any means.

[Peter McKercher]

Yes, Salvador Blue is correct. Again, I'm not sure if Coronation Blue and Salvador Blue are the same, but I think they are, with a simple name change to honour the coronation in 1953. With respect to Oriental Blue, I have never heard of that. Certainly it was never a production colour and all the literature supplied referenced only the standard colours. I can't see Vaughan having been insistent on a particular colour name either. He had much bigger fish to fry. As well, it's not a reference that would have been marketable in the U.S. post WWII.

[Phillip]

Hey William,

I've been playing with Singers for @50 years and both Bill Haverly and Ashley Crossland, are old friends of mine, although Bill has passed away. They are considered the leading authorities on the Singer Roadster and neither has ever mentioned Oriental Blue. I've even had access to the ledgers and never saw it!

That said, one thing you can say about Singer history is that there is always something new to learn no matter how long you have been playing with them and researching them!

You have the pages from the ledgers that prove your point. There were a lot of inconsistencies in the record-keeping at Singer, but there seem to be enough entries of "Orient Blue" and "Oriental Blue" to make it relevant.

I owned and researched the Roadster that John Lewis now has. It is a very original 1954 Twin Carb 4AD. The colour was Coronation Blue with Gray interior. The paint was a very fine metal-flake and really shows off the curves of the car. John did a great job on getting a match.

Queen Elizabeth's coronation was February 1952, past the 1952 model year introduction which would have taken place in October of 1951. It may be that as a patriotic tribute to the new young Queen, the colour name was changed. It was certainly available until 1954 and probably until the end of production.

The colour combinations became more varied towards the end of production, especially with the introduction of the twin carb. It was also a way of freshening up an aging design. Finances at Singer were never very stable and the period of beige only interiors may have been a reflection of that. I know the signal red cars with beige upholstery often had red piping, but body-coloured piping was not a universal convention from what I have seen. The convertible tops and side-screens, however, were a strange tweed pattern that had the body colour woven into it. Both my A Series and my 4AD had the original tops and this was how they were done.

Thanks for bringing this very interesting topic to our attention! Auto-archaeology is a lot of fun...