Singer's biggest, most powerful roadster, the SM 4AD, wasn't even sold to its own home market at first — for its first two years, it was export-only.
Lead trim: 4AD SM Roadster 1.5 (1497 cc, 48 hp) · up to 58 hp
Singer Roadster 4AD1951–1955
- 0spots by members
- Unclaimednobody has spotted one yet
- 0sets it belongs to
Nobody in Burbles has spotted a Singer Roadster 4AD yet. See one on the street, point the app at it, and the first card is yours — with your @handle permanently credited on this page.
FactSinger's biggest, most powerful roadster, the SM 4AD, wasn't even sold to its own home market at first — for its first two years, it was export-only.
The final version of the Roadster, the 4AD, was officially known as the Singer SM Roadster (Singer SM 1500C in the USA; 3,440 made, 1951–1955). First seen at the October 1951 Paris Motor Show and initially intended for export only, it used the 48 hp, 1497 cc engine from the SM1500 saloon in a virtually unchanged chassis and body, retaining the hydraulic/mechanical hybrid brakes, with a 58 hp twin-carburettor option from 1953; it can be told from the 4AB by its larger, rounder bumpers and bigger taillights on long stalks. From 1953 the 1.5-litre cars became available on the domestic market too. A car tested by The Motor in 1951 had a top speed of 73 mph and reached 0–60 mph in 23.6 seconds (25.8 mpg); no price was quoted as it was for export only. An experimental glass-fibre-bodied SMX Roadster (about ten made) was displayed at Earls Court in October 1953.
Collectors Spotted in the Singer Roadster Lineage
No member has published a public street spot of the Singer Roadster yet — the First · Worldwide stamp is wide open.
Trims & Figures
2 published trims in the catalogue. A blank is a figure not recorded, not zero.
| Trim | Years | Engine | Power | Torque | 0–60 | Drive | Gearbox | MSRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4AD SM Roadster 1.5 (1497 cc, 48 hp) | 1951–1955 | 1.5 L Inline-4 | 48 hp | — | 23.6 s | RWD | — | — |
| 4AD SM Roadster 1.5 twin-carb (1497 cc, 58 hp) | 1953–1955 | 1.5 L Inline-4 | 58 hp | — | — | RWD | — | — |
Owning one
We don’t estimate running costs for a car like this. What it costs depends on its condition, its specialist and how it is driven, and an average would mislead.
Owners’ builds
Nobody has claimed one yet.
Singer's biggest, most powerful roadster, the SM 4AD, wasn't even sold to its own home market at first — for its first two years, it was export-only.

Rather than build a new engine, Singer just sleeved down its 1.5-litre unit for the 4AC — and only built about a dozen of these prototype roadsters.
Singer's update to the 1950 4A Roadster included swapping the carburettor entirely — for a gain of exactly one horsepower.

Singer's Nine Roadster quietly outgrew its own name — it launched in 1939 with a bigger 1074cc engine borrowed from the Bantam Nine, not the smaller unit the Nine badge implied.
Rivals
Same body, same money, other badges — tap any card to flip.

This was the year the Virage's automatic finally got a fourth gear — Aston swapped in a four-speed automatic to replace the original three-speed unit for the 1993 model year.

Audi's first drop-top since 1959 barely made a dent stateside: the V6 Cabriolet sold just 5,445 units across its entire five-year run in the US market.

This Azure's V8 exists because of a corporate grudge: when VW won the fight for Bentley, BMW threatened to cut off engine supply — forcing VW to rebuild the 6.75-litre V8 itself, twin-turbos and all.

Bentley never even considered a roll-bar for the Azure's convertible top — they just reinforced the chassis instead and let the design stay pure.

The F8 Spider's folding hardtop raises or lowers in just 14 seconds, and you can do it on the move, at up to 28 mph.

Bentley hid a charging nook for iPads between the rear seats of the Continental GT Convertible — a 2015 update that quietly conceded the future was tablets, not just wood veneer.

Bentley built just 710 of these second-generation Supersports worldwide, coupe and convertible combined — one of the rarest W12 Bentleys ever made.

The Auburn Twelve's V12 outlived the car by decades — its engine design became the basis for American LaFrance fire truck powerplants that stayed in service into the 1950s.