I think of Rick D’Louhy and myself as champions of the forgotten—cars and people who accomplished amazing things when the skills, resources, and money needed to accomplish such endeavors were often few and far between.
During the 1950s, building your own sports car was often a viable and necessary step toward ownership when most of what was out there was from overseas. And getting an edge on the competition meant increasing speed, magnifying horsepower, dropping weight, and other secrets, some of which have been lost to time.
One of the ways that some enterprising young Americans could have their cake and eat it too was to rebody a foreign sports car, often an MG or other such car. One of the cars that were rebodied at the time was a car called a “Singer” from the United Kingdom.
Not many were done, though, and most were just built as a one-of-one, ultra-limited edition, and the best known of these cars on a Singer frame with drivetrain was designed, built, and sold by Kjell Qvale and his BMC Corporation based in San Francisco. Kjell Qvale made a few bodies, sports cars, and racecars using Singers, and we’re still on the lookout for an example (and we think we’re close to finding our first one). Jules “Jay” Heumann, chairman emeritus of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, also built a one-off Singer special.
Geoff Hacker became intrigued with racing Singer automobiles. Here is Ralph Bush racing his Singer at the Pomona race course in the early 1950s. GEOFF HACKER COLLECTION
In the process of researching Singer-derived specials, Hacker happened upon this 1952 Singer, the last racing Singer. Hacker (right) is posing with the car’s original builder/racer Ralph Bush. GEOFF HACKER
So by the time we had finished researching as many (if not most and probably all) of the Singer specials built in the 1950s, I had become good friends with Peter McKercher, vice president of the North American Singer Owners Club. One day, Peter announced that with all the research I had completed on Singer specials of the ’50s I was now one of two historical Singer experts in North America.
Wow! I was honored, so I asked Peter if I shouldn’t go ahead and find an interesting Singer out there to save, restore, and show. “Was there anything interesting?” I asked him. And he began to tell me about the story about Ralph Bush and the Last Racing Singer.
Ralph was a member of the Singer Owners Club back then, and was racing Singers in the early ’50s with other members. In late ’50s, he decided he wanted to race a Singer again, and he purchased one from a friend. By 1960, he was racing at such tracks as Pomona, Riverside, Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, Taft, Las Vegas, and other such venues. Several years later he decided to sell his car, and he never saw it again.
Never saw it, that is, until it appeared on Tam’s Old Race Car Site (http://www.tamsoldracecarsite.net/). Eric Weese had decided to sell cars that had been in his father’s collection (the James Weese Collection), and while many had been sold, this one remained. In fact, it had been for sale for two to three years in plain sight on the website at a very reasonable price.
The perfect car for me! With Tam McPartland’s help, I contacted Eric and made arrangements to purchase the car. But before shipping it home to Tampa, we found Ralph Bush and invited him to join us to celebrate his car and his memories of it at my friend Erich Schultz’s home in Pasadena, California, before shipping it home.
Much to our great pleasure, Ralph accepted the offer. He joined us in the summer of 2013 for the visit, reuniting with his old car. We spent the day having a great time reliving his memories. We even did two short videos of this event, and they’re available on YouTube for the world to see.
So I now have a racecar—a 1952 Singer 4AD—with great history and in need of great restoration. What makes this even more amazing for me is that it’s the only known Singer car with racing history that has ever been found here in the States. It’s quite an honor for me to have stewardship of this car and its history, and I hope to be able to bring this car and its story back to prominence and make all those involved—especially Ralph Bush—proud in every way.
