This is John Hadfield’s 1951 4AB Roadster JS 9360 which he purchased in Norfolk in 2012 having owned a 4A Roadster in the late 70s/early 80s. The apparently early 1930s registration number on a 1951 car caused puzzlement at first – surely licensing authorities had all switched to the AAA999 format by 1936 at latest? However, all was soon revealed – John’s Roadster was first registered in remote and sparsely populated Ross and Cromarty north of Inverness where cars (let alone Singer Roadsters) were clearly pretty thin on the ground in those days as the local authority did not exhaust their initial early 30s 2-alpha ‘JS’ number range allocation until 1955! Since buying the car, John has replaced a non-original homemade dashboard with an original 4AB item which was sanded down to bare wood, given several applications of french polish and then a good coat of clear antique furniture polish which displays the wood grain to great effect. At the same time it was found that woodworm had been making a meal of the plywood board under the tool deck (mysterious sawdust in footwells!) so off with the tool deck and out with the crumbling plywood remains which fortunately were still able to provide a template for some fresh plywood board, which was thoroughly treated with preservative to prevent return of the little blighters. The hydraulic front brakes weren’t too brilliant on the first outing and a lower than expected fluid level seemed to indicate master or slave cylinder problems – but there was no sign of fluid leakage anywhere and a simple top up and brake bleed permanently restored things to normal much to general relief. Apart from a fuel starvation / blockage problem which was remedied by fuel pipe replacement, tank drain-down, fuel pump cleanout and fitment of an inline filter at tank end, the car has been reliable and given much pleasure.
