A Car linked to a Tragic Story

This is an anonymous little car photographed at the 1998 Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1998. It was built in 1954 using a twin cam version of a 1500cc Singer engine developed by the HRG Engineering Company and with chassis and bodywork designed by a former Aston Martin engineer. The owner and driver of the car successfully competed against cars such as the Lotus MkVI and MkVIII cars designed by Colin Chapman and he had been picked to be part of the Bristol team at the Le Mans 24 hour race in June 1955.

The car is the Emperor HRG and the owner and driver was David Blakely. On 10 April 1955 outside The Magdala public house in Hampstead, London he was shot dead by his ill-used lover, Ruth Ellis, who subsequently became the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom.