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In the OTL prior to the depression Singer was once the 3rd largest UK carmaker behind Austin and Morris.

However a series of bad decisions such as the bad publicity surrounding the 1935 Ards TT disaster (part of a short-lived and ambitious yet partially successful motorsport programme) was what partly led to Singer’s decline, along with its factories being heavily bombed during WW2 all meant that Singer was unable to regain its previous pre-war position as a dominant carmaker.

By the time Singer returned to building cars after WW2, its decline, loss of UK market share and resultant limited resources forced them to effectively re-introduce models based on pre-war design and technology at a period when rivals were introducing more advanced technology and design than Singer could provide at the time.

Eventually Singer’s debts meant it would be acquired by the Rootes Group in 1956, largely due to sentimental reasons on the part of William Rootes who was once an apprentice at Singer, where the marque was reduced to re-badged Rootes models while its pre-existing debts would go on to contribute to the Rootes Group’s own later decline.


In an ATL however where Singer avoided the OTL issues that eventually brought about its decline, in terms of post-war market share ATL Singer in 1952 would still be behind the likes of Austin and Morris (later BMC) yet would have potentially been larger than OTL Rootes as well as roughly the same as Ford and Vauxhall (albeit individually).

It also likely that post-war ATL Singer would have to temporarily revert to OHV engines prior to going back to OHC (and later Twin-Cam) engines.

Merger wise OTL Singer did propose one to Rover and a few others in 1935 during its decline though it never happened as Rover had its own problems, however there was one company that ATL Singer could have potentially acquired in better circumstances during the mid/late-1930s, Riley Motor.

Though Singer and Riley were rivals, in this ATL scenario both companies would have a similar dynamic to MG and Riley (also former rivals) under Morris where Riley was the more upmarket of the two, while Singer would be the mainstream sporting marque of the company.


Interestingly. Riley before being acquired by Morris in OTL, spoke with BMW during the mid/late-30s as the latter were interested in expanding its range into England, yet the Riley Brothers were more interested in a larger British concern such as Triumph when the latter dropped merger negotiations were after Riley went into voluntary receivership (with Triumph following around a year later).

Another company ATL Singer could have potentially acquired down the road or used as a model badge (akin to Cooper, Cosworth, etc) is the HRG Engineering Company, who began using Singer mechanicals from the late-1930s for its sports cars and even developed a Twin-Cam version of the 1500cc Singer OHC SM1500 engine for the updated Singer Hunter S / Singer Hunter 75 (an engine whose design originates from the pre-war 1937-1939 Singer Twelve).
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