This is Rodney Cane’s 1968 Singer Vogue Estate (Arrows model).
Rodney tells us: “It is manual + overdrive, reg NOG 51F, in Alpine White, with a (genuine) mileage of 40,985.
It is the top of the range of one of the last Singers to be produced, and, being an estate produced only from 1967 – 1970, quite rare – particularly in this condition.
It replaces a 1968 Saloon Auto that I have since sold. My interest was in vehicles produced whilst I worked at Humber, Rootes, Chrysler, Talbot, Peugeot from 1967 – 1998.
In 1976 I visited Iran where the Peykan was assembled. I must have had 35 – 40 different cars in the Rootes Management Role Car scheme since 1970, and went on my honeymoon to Cornwall in 1973 in a Hunter Estate.
As to the car’s history, it was supplied new by Vaughan Motors (1941) Ltd, Sheldon, Birmingham, to Mr Hickling of Shenstone. He later retired to Upton, Dulverton and kept it until he died in 2001. His widow sold it to Thomfalcon Car Sales in Taunton, whose workshop, Hatch Beauchamp Garage, put two new front wings on and resprayed it. I imagine they may well also have put some sills on it – I was told that at one stage it was in a poor state. Thomfalcon sold it to Arthur Tyle of Knowle, Bristol, who, I understand, needed to raise some cash for medical purposes, so he sold it back to Thomfalcon, from whom I bought it in September 2006 as a bit of nostalgia from my working life.
All I have had to do to it is clutch master & slave cylinders. a bit of welding in a rear inner wheel arch and fit two new front tyres.