The Singer Nine’s immediate ancestor was the 8bhp Junior, a successful high-quality light car powered by an 848cc four-cylinder overhead-camshaft engine.

Built from 1932 to 1939, the Nine employed a 972cc 26.5bhp version of this motor (first used for the Junior Special) in an entirely new chassis.

A four-speed freewheel gearbox was standard, while both the Nine Sports and the more powerful and faster Nine Le Mans came with hydraulic brakes.

The latter model had resulted from a successful venture into endurance racing, when a Nine Sports took 13th place in the 1933 Le Mans 24-Hour Race.

But it was in trials events that the sporting Nines proved particularly effective, successfully challenging the previously dominant MG’s.

Despite having been in production for only one season, the Nine was completely redesigned for 1933, retaining the engine capacity of 972cc but benefiting from a more powerful and much more strongly built unit, which went into a new chassis, of increased wheelbase ...