Singer Collection Saved

Back in the 1970’s, our NASOC Editor and Pre-War Registrar, Phillip Avis, made contact with a fellow in Caistor Centre, Ontario, who had a large collection of Singer cars. At that point in time, any Singer was a real find, but a collection was simply amazing. The cars included a ’38 Bantam saloon, a Gazelle Estate, a ‘49 A Series, a ’50 4A and a ’54 4AD-T. This ‘chorus’ was brought together in the 1960’s and probably formed the largest private collection in North America at the time. Sadly, the owner abruptly moved and contact was lost.

Fast-forward to 2007 and with the Singer community being so small, it was not surprising that Phillip received a tip-off from a friend who is a member of the British Saloon Car Club, that a brace of Singers had been sighted in Hamilton Ontario. The owner, a Bill Riley, had once been the keeper of five Singers: a pre-war Bantam, an A Series Roadster, a 4A, 4ADT and a Gazelle. Sadly, a divorce, time and work constraints had left little opportunity for Bill to restore his collection and eventually the Bantam was sold off and Gazelle scrapped. He had kept the Roadsters, but the decision had now been made to find a new home for the remains of his collection. Phillip re-connected with Bill and offered to help in any way we could.

Plans were made to go and see the cars and determine how best we could help, so a trip to Hamilton was the next order of business. Bill met us part way and guided us to a local scrap dealer who had allowed him to store the A and 4A for the past 7 years. Time and the elements were not kind to the A and most of the wood and metal was rotting away. The car was little more than a shell at this point in time.

The 4A had been covered during its storage so the damage was not as great, but the car would need to be saved soon as another year or two would make a big difference. An inspection of the 4A showed that the car was amazingly original! Bill had driven the car to the storage facility so the mechanical history of the car was promising.

Leaving the scrap yard, we drove on to Bill's house where the 4ADT was stored. We entered the garage and found buried in the back a nicely preserved Roadster! Although nicely bundled in the corner of the garage we could tell that this car too was very original with the hints of the original Coronation blue paint, beige vinyl dash and the grey leather interior.

We were invited inside to chat about cars, the Roadster restorations and Singers in general. Although we had only known Bill and his wife Judy for a short time, we chatted and joked as if we had known each other for years. It was a very pleasant afternoon.

With our departure time imminent, Bill approached us and said that he wanted us to have the cars. Our time with him was almost like an interview and he wanted to ensure that the new owners of these cars would share his passion for Singers and would be able to get them back on the road once again. We were quite taken aback. We had planned to evaluate the cars and assist Bill to find perspective buyers, but the offer was tempting! Phillip and I returned to Montreal with the promise to come up with an offer that would satisfy all involved. This was an important factor in our decision. No party wants to take advantage of the other and we wanted to be able to keep Bill in the loop with updates on our progress and the contact for their future owners.

A few days later we contacted Bill with our offer, which was kindly accepted. The price was less important to Bill than the knowledge that the 4A and 4ADT would be in the hands of true fans of the Marque and would one day see the road again. For us, we were pleased to see two more Singers that would eventually find new homes and a new lease on life. The condition of the sale was that the cars had to go to other Singer enthusiasts if we did not keep them.

With fall almost over and winter fast approaching, we had to move fast to get the cars back to Montreal. Bill was losing the storage on the A and 4A and his wife needed to move the contents of her gift shop to the garage where the 4ADT was stored, so ‘ASAP’ was the order of the day. ‘Team Singer Rescue’, in the shape of me, along with my son Alex, with my van and trailer, plus Phillip with his rig, hit the road on a very wet and stormy Friday evening in October. Hamilton is about an eight hour drive for us from Montreal, so it was very early Saturday morning when we reached our hotel in Burlington, west of Toronto.

Saturday morning dawned all too soon, but the weather had cleared. We drove the last half hour and met Bill at the usual rendezvous location before heading on to the scrap yard. Once there, we quickly deployed to sort out the cars for transport. Bill is a videographer by trade- an experience that he and Phillip share- so out came the equipment as he had also decided to document the event with his camcorder!

It quickly became apparent that the A Series had pretty much decomposed on the spot and that it would have to be dismantled in order to transport it. It took two hours, but we reduced the outwardly complete carcass to a pile of parts and duly stowed them in our vans. The 4A proved much easier and, after pumping up the tyres, we were able to load it onto my trailer. The A series frame was pushed onto Phillip’s trailer and we made our way to Bill’s house to retrieve the 4ADT.

Once at Bill’s and with the garage door open, we had a moment of panic. The garage was jammed packed with Judy’s fragile merchandise…with the 4ADT at the back! With time at daylight at a premium, we formed a human chain and removed everything- one box at a time. Finally, the 4ADT was revealed, but the tyres were flat and wouldn’t hold air. Bill hooked a chain to his van and hauled the Singer into daylight for the first time in many years. We were able to manhandle the car into position and photos of Bill in the car were taken. This proved very emotional for Bill as it was the first time since the 1960’s that he had actually sat behind the wheel. He was sad, but equally excited that these cars were going to new homes where they would be appreciated.

The A chassis would have to be stored at Bill’s for a while as we could not get the rusted chassis apart, but Len Pearcey had agreed to pick it up at a later date (this has since been done) With Phillip’s trailer cleared, we struggled to get the 4ADT on without the aid of a winch or air in the tyres! It was a struggle, but we managed.

With everything loaded, we then had to return all of Judy’s stock to the garage. Once done, we adjourned for tea and to collect the Singer literature that Bill was including in the sale. These will be scanned and passed onto our NASOC Librarian. There are a number of brochures, including ones for the 4AB Roadster, the Super Ten and a rare item on the Super Twelve, as well as parts books, the Book of the Singer and some Lucas spec sheets for the Roadsters.

With darkness descending, we unfortunately had to bid Bill and Judy farewell and so with lingering goodbyes, we made our way to the highway with Bill still filming all the way. The traffic across Toronto was extremely heavy and so it was early Sunday morning before we finally made it home with out treasures- exhausted but elated that this Singer collection had been saved.