Singer Silent Six.
Charles emailed this photo over, and initially it went onto the Mystery Cars page, so unusual was this motor-car. I soon received identification from a visitor to that page, confirming that the car was in fact a Singer Silent Six Kaye Don, with coachwork by Beauvais. OD 1991 was registered in Devon, between August 1931 and June 1934.
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One look at the coachwork shows how special a car this must have been - the rakishly proportioned front wings, the radiator, the twin sidemounts (spare wheels housed in the front wings/running boards), the split screen arrangement, and even the front bumper, all add up to an impressive-looking pre-war car. Beneath the bonnet you'd find a straight six OHV engine of 2160cc. Note the externally-mounted, directional, trafficators fitted to the front windscreen pillars. In 1932, a factory-bodied Silent Six Kaye Don saloon would have cost 480 pounds.
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The model is named after Kaye Don, the racing driver of the inter-war years. Although he started his racing career on two wheels, in the 1920s he switched to racing cars, often at the Brooklands racing track in Surrey. In 1928 he drove a Sunbeam to claim the Outer Circuit lap record at Brooklands, improving on his maximum again, in 1929. At Daytona Beach he attempted to break the land speed record in his twin-12 cylinder Silver Bullet record car, while back home still competing in a variety of cars, including a V12 Sunbeam and, in the early 1930s, a red 4.9 Bugatti.
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During the 1930s, Charles Beauvais' designs could be found fitted to a number of contemporary car chassis. Avon for instance, under contract to cloth 9hp and 16hp Standards, brought in Beauvais to head-up the cars' design team. As early as 1933 he introduced flashing indicators to the Avon-bodied Standards, quite something for a time when many, cheaper, cars made do with no indicators at all (not even trafficators). His flair for design is very evident in the Singer Silent Six Kaye Don, shown above, although there are few references to his creations on the 'net.
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Return to Old Car Photos section, Page No. 10.
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