Merriel Gallifant, from Essex, learned to drive the 1929 Singer Junior when she was just 16 – but sold it again for £5 in 1962. She then launched a bid to track down the vehicle
A pensioner tracked down the 1929 car she learned to drive in age 16 after she salvaged it from the scrapheap.
Merriel Gallifant’s father Harry Booth bought the 1929 Singer Junior from a scrapyard in 1961 and the teenager decided it would be ideal to learn to drive in. The 81-year-old fondly remembers practising gearstick changes in front of her father’s Old Cottage Paint shop in Stanway, Essex.
Mr Booth then sold the Singer to couple David and Sylvia Rouse who bought it for £5 in 1962. Incredibly, Merriel was then reunited with the car around 30 years later. Mr and Mrs Rouse were showing it at a car rally when Merriel showed Mr Rouse an old photo of her sitting on Singer’s bonnet after exclaiming: “That’s my car!”
Mr Rouse used the car every day and took it to vintage car club events, competed in hill climbs, driving tests and navigational rallies and tours The couple kept it for 57 years before he died in 2017. Mrs Rouse decided to sell their car collection but kept the Singer until Merriel became the owner again in 2019 – buying it for a second time.
And now she has sold it once again through auctioneers Reeman Dansie for £4,100 with all proceeds being donated to St Helena Hospice. It was sold at auction with a large file of historical documents and a collection of photographs.
Lewis Rabett, head of the collectors department, said: “First of all, it is a lovely vehicle and has a very nice end to quite a happy story. It has come full circle and there is a nice photograph of Merriel next to the car today and one from when she was a teenager.”
Speaking ahead of the auction on April 12, he said: “I think it is quite a specialist classic vehicle. It’s not necessarily going to appeal to everyone – they require specialist knowledge to work on and drive. But a combination of the history, lovely condition, and the fact the car has been used and enjoyed for years, for anyone with a collection of cars, this is going to be something they are really keen to acquire.”
