Standard 8, after the Bush Rats were evicted. incidentally, grey wheelie bins appear to be the same the world over

I have recently been in email correspondence with Chris Cansdale in Melbourne about a Standard 8 that he has rescued:

Hi Phil, 

I thought you might like the following details and photo’s. I rescued a car yesterday that I had found a few months ago.

A Flying Standard 8 Sedan (Saloon) that over here is VERY rare, I have only ever seen one other and it was passing me on a highway in the opposite direction..

I had only inspected the car at night previously and wondered what I may have missed, but it seems to be very sound. It needs new sills as they have rusted through and had played home to some bush rats over time, being filled with seed hulls from the food supply of the parrots that it had been kept next to for the last 15 years.

To my surprise there are a number of differences between it and my tourer and I discovered that it has a Fischer and Ludlow body, where my tourer is an Aussie made Richards body as we have previously compared to Pat Gings car.

The only information I have, suggests that this may be a fully imported car.

• There are no trim stripes or handle on the boot lid which is a much larger lid than the tourer.
• The tail light is switched separately by a small push/pull switch on the driver’s rear guard
• The seats appear to be covered in vinyl (original) where the Aussie cars are supposed to have leather in the deluxe saloons
• The mechanism for a rear window blind and all the cable pull eyelets up the driver still fitted
• No evidence of there ever being any provision for tool storage on the back of the seat squab in the boot (if you can call it that)
• The air filter is a separate oil bath unit mounted on firewall and connected by hose to the carburettor.

I didn’t write down the commission number, but the body number is 585304. I’ll get the engine number and commission number on the weekend.

If any members over there can provide me with ANY information to fill in the gaps I’d be most grateful as all I know is it’s plated as a 4/8A and therefore post war so getting the year right would be good too. I appear to be the third owner from new.

The downside, is that it had been fitted with 70’s rubber backed bathroom carpet and not very well. The resident bush rats had made home and a nest under the ill fitting carpet around the gear shift and apparently have poor personal hygiene as the car STINKS and I mean STINKS of rat urine. So before storing it, I spent 3 hours cutting and ripping out the 70’s carpet, chewed rubber, under felt and original carpet from the back to help remove the smell. ( I also found a flattened dehydrated previous tenant) This was followed by the rear seat cushions which seem to also be smell pads. I’m guessing the floor timber will have to be next…

If you guys don’t quite have the image yet, our Aussie bush rats get up to a foot long! (tail not included)

Hope you guys can help as I don’t believe any of the Standard people over here knew the car existed. (Not even the next door neighbours in the small community it came from knew it was there.)

The motor pictured is a spare and came with 2 extra gearboxes (3 speed) as well

Regards

Chris Cansdale

Melbourne , Australia

Click on the thumbprints to see an enlargement:

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