Two tone Singer Vogue.
In these days of personalised numberplates, I wonder what the value of 1 STU would be today?? any Stuarts care to comment? .. a check online suggests it is now screwed onto a Volvo of all things, anyway, more importantly, the car shown in the photograph, which is a Singer Vogue. By this time, Singer sat alongside Hillman, Sunbeam and Humber within the mighty Rootes Group empire, and badge-engineering (just as at BMC) was in full swing, with common platforms supporting re-styled versions of a base model. In this case, the Vogue was based on Hillman Super Minx's underpinnings (and was actually introduced to market before the Super Minx), much to the chagrin of loyal Singer buyers who perhaps still remembered when the company produced its own, individual, motorcars.
However, if the car was judged on its own merits, it wasn't a bad car by any means, and I have a soft spot for the Vogue and Humber Sceptre, both being quite well equipped, and certainly distinctive-looking, classics today. Differentiating the new-for-1961 Vogue from lowlier models was a heavily revised front end, featuring a grille echoing the shape of earlier Singers, and a twin headlamp arrangement that was also seen on the Sceptre, calling for different front panels. The rear lamps were also revised, and the interior spruced up a litttle. The driver got a central armrest in the bench seat, with instrumentation housed in a smart wood dashboard. Hidden beneath the skin were running gear components common to other variants on the Super Minx theme, although an overdrive could be ordered on the Singer. The car shown is an early-ish example, as in 1964 the cars switched to a revised roofline, with a flatter (non-wraparound) rear screen.
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