Like so many other British car-makers Singer first built bicycles at the turn of the last century. By 1905 the company had built its first motorcar and continued to grow in size throughout the 1920's until it had become the third largest auto-maker in the UK. In these early pre-war days Singer offered lightweight sport models to rival the likes of MG and Riley.

Post-war Singer continued to build its Singer Nine model which was a serious rival to the MG T-Series. In 1947 the company launched its lack-lustre model, the SM1500. The SM1500 was the first in a long line of saloon models which would follow from the Rootes owned company. By the mid-1960's Singer was just another name used to badge-engineer cars built on shared Rootes platforms and this led to the marques disappearance in the mid-1970's.