The gleaming Humber Super Snipe shown above looked as good inside as it did outside. Such cars do not survive in great numbers and that is not purely due to the small quantities built. These large, impressive and luxurious cars first appeared in October 1958, replacing the gargantuan 4.1 litre Super Snipe MK4. It wasn't to be the MK5, but was christened the Series 1. The completely new car had a straight-six engine of only 2651cc and was lighter and more compact than its predecessor. It was the start of a 9-year run, culminating in the Series 5a in 1967.

The output of the new Humber engine, at 112bhp, was unusually high for a pushrod unit of that capacity at that time. The Vauxhall Cresta, uprated to an identical 2651cc for 1960, had 95bhp. The wholly contemporary 2639cc Austin A95 had 92bhp and the A105 had twin carbs and 102bhp. The single-carb 2625cc Rover 100 had 104bhp and the 2553cc Ford Zephyr and Zodiac MK2s had just 85bhp.

The new Humber six was of 'square' bore and stroke dimensions (82.55mm x 82.55mm) and had the advantage of near-hemispherical combustion chambers by means of cross-over pushrods and twin rocker shafts, with centrally positioned spark plugs. These details can be seen in the picture below. The tubes are for the plugs.

The picture below is of the 3990cc Armstrong-Siddeley straight-six, which produced 165bhp. It will be obvious to you that there are strong similarities between the two designs. This is no accident as Armstrong-Siddeley designed both units. The larger engine had bore and stroke measurements of 97mm x 90mm and was developed for the Star Sapphire of 1958-60, the swansong of a long and distinguished history for the company which was, by 1960, part of the Bristol-Siddeley group and by the mid-1960s, the Rolls-Royce group.

The 3990cc engine was itself an enlargement of the 3435cc (90mm x 90mm) unit fitted to the Sapphire 346 as early as 1952. I have been unable to discover whether the smaller-capacity Humber engine was actually a reduced-capacity version of the A-S unit, or a completely new design on the same principles. It is conceivable that Armstrong-Siddeley had prepared a smaller-capacity version for a putative replacement for the Sapphire 234 and 236 models, produced from 1955 to 1958. The 234 used a 2290cc 4-cylinder version of the 'hemi' engine, producing a very respectable 120bhp. However, the styling was unfortunate and the model was eclipsed by the Jaguar 2.4-litre and 3.4-litre 'MK1' saloons. Be that as it may, the A-S designed engine served Humber very well. Capacity was enlarged to 2965cc for the Series 2 in 1959 with bore and stroke of 87.3mm x 82.5mm, and power up to 129bhp. That later increased to 133bhp with the Series 4.

The provision of the 'hemi' engine for the new Super-Snipe was not the end of co-operation between the Rootes group and Armstrong-Siddeley. When the new Sunbeam Alpine was launched in 1959, based on a modified Hillman Husky floorpan, it was Armstrong-Siddeley who would assemble it, an arrangement which continued until 1961. More Sunbeam Alpines were produced by Armstrong-Siddeley than any single model the company had ever produced under its own name.

Whilst talking with a gentleman on the club stand at the show about the car shown at the top of this article, I found out something quite interesting. From 1964 the 'Snipe received styling changes to the upper bodywork. Carbodies Ltd continued to provide estate car conversions, but in the original style, and used a supply of remaining earlier-type bodyshells which were kept in a field. Resultantly, rust was even more rampant than hitherto in these cars and extremely few survived of the small numbers built!