Outstanding
At 16, Adrian Squire, born in 1910, already knew exactly what he wanted. He had already drafted a six-page brochure for the car he would one day build. He began a degree, but soon signed on with Bentley; at 19, Squire had a good job at MG. At 21, he founded the Squire Car Manufacturing Company, with money coming from a wealthy friend. The business idea was interesting: Squire wanted to buy used sports cars and then resell them, using the profit to finance his own production. The company moved into a house with a workshop in Henley-on-Thames, where Squire was able to work on his dream in peace. But he quickly realised that he didn’t have the resources to design the new car all by himself. At British Anzani, an offshoot of the Italian engine manufacturer, he found a 1.5-litre four-cylinder engine that had actually been designed for Frazer-Nash but never used. The compact engine produced about 60 hp, but Squire wanted much more, so a compressor was added to increase the power to 110 hp. This was a lot for the time, but the Anzani R1 would prove to be a weak point in the future vehicle, as its reliability left much to be desired.
But what the Squire otherwise offered was simply great. Squire knew from the outset that he needed a low centre of gravity to achieve the driving characteristics he wanted. He designed an underslung steel frame with an adjustable chassis, plus the largest brakes of the time. In a comparison test with an Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 and a Bugatti 55, the little English car was not inferior in terms of driving performance, but it braked significantly better. However, it was also very expensive: 950 pounds for the ‘rolling chassis’ was more than for the Alfa and the Bugatti – and if you also wanted the drophead coupé body from Vanden Plas, the price rose to a hefty 1,350 pounds. When the Squire was launched in 1934 with a short and long wheelbase, interest was very low, even though the vehicle received great press. Probably only nine or ten Squire were built by 1937, eight of which are said to still exist. Adrian Squire was killed in a German air raid in 1940.
The car we are showing here, chassis number #1063, is the only Squire with a Corsica body. We have already mentioned the British here, a Bugatti Type 57 SC, which didn’t employ its own designers, but primarily took on board the special requests of its customers. Geoffrey Munro wanted a Drophead Coupé – unfortunately, we don’t know exactly what it looked like, because a former owner ordered a complete restoration in the 80s. And had the design adapted to his very own Art Deco ideas. It is debatable whether this really helped the Squire – which is probably why the ‘Corsica’ is only estimated at $400,000 to $600,000 at the Broad Arrow auction in mid-February 2025.
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