1937 Standard Flying Ten

[Roger England]

I thought you might be interested to hear of my first car - bought for £5 in 1962. It was a 1937 Flying Ten - reg. GR 4278. Despite having no electric starter (broken), and the necessity to drive with my arm over the drivers door to stop it opening, it proved to be an ideal way of learning to drive, and how the maintain a car.

For its MOT the previous owner had removed the king pin grease nipples and replaced them with brass drifts to take up the play. He drove it carefully to the garage and it passed! Grease nipples were replaced once he got home. The crank on the engine had been hand filed with a swiss file because he couldn't afford to have the journals ground. Using old shells and engineers blue to mark the high spots, he carefully filed away and then fitted new shells. With some thick oil, it did the job, amazingly!

Because the central door pillar had rusted through completely, the doors would open when turning right and "clap hands" with each other. This was solved by tying washing line between the inner rear door handles.

Sadly, it failed its MOT due to advanced rust and was taken to the breakers in 1963.

I'm afraid that was my last Standard ownership, but I have had several Triumphs, and am in the last stages of restoring a 1970 Vitesse saloon now.

Roger England

[Ian Leggett]

Well Roger that was quite a learning curve. Considering it was already 25 years old and from the sound of it in a repair only as needed environment it was a miracle it did still run.
Very interesting though. Hope the Triumphs get looked after better. Regards Ian.

[petefoster]

Hi Roger. It sounds worse than the 1937 Flying 12 that my Dad bought in 1956 (AUS 896), which was his first car. We couldn't use the drivers side rear door because the rear wing was bodged with silver paper & polyfiller coated with firegrate black paint, if we used the back door & slammed it shut the wing came loose! Mind you we had to once when the exhaust came off & he stowed the pipe in the rear, blocking our usual means of exit ! He traded it in for a 1953 Standard 8 in Dec 1958 & got £5 for the car.

[Ian Leggett]

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL FORUM USERS AND KEEP THE INTEREST RUNNING IN THE NEW YEAR> Regards Ian