Standard Flying Eight - the underrated 1930s pre-war classic car

Standard Flying Eight How many cars can trace their history back, let alone a car from 1939? Well this particular car can, because all the owners are on file from new and it’s retained a large amount of originality; which the current owner is stedfast about keeping and something I wholly admire in today’ world of overly restored, shiny cars. The car, although wearing her age at a first glance, has recently benefitted from a sympathetic schedule of work including a chassis off resto and a complete engine rebuild; complemented by suspension and brakes fully overhauled. The car, now residing in Yorkshire, was first registered to a lady residing in Scotland, which is interesting in itself due to the low female ownership of vehicles at this time especially from new and she kept the car until 1966 and it then bounced through a few owners until 1969 when the car was taken off the road and then put into the Museum of Transport in Glasgow. The museum kept it until 2016 and the current owner purchased, as ninth owner, in 2019. Now with these cars being so old, a lot of people don’t fully appreciate that the Flying range was a big deal for Standard in those post Second World War years; with the Flying Standards giving buyers a range of family friendly cars to choose from and from the mid to late 30s, there was a choice of budget through to mid-range saloons through to fast, luxurious for the era cars. Standard were bold: they kept the range updated, looked at the competition and tried to stay one step ahead of the game; which might be why we see independent front suspension on this, but more of that later. Of the Flying 8, you’ll notice a lot of pre war cars are called something or other 8, 9 or 10. This is due to the taxation classes of the time and this fell into the 8hp bracket. It’s calculated on the cylinder surface area by the way. The engine as I tell you later on as well, is the 1021cc 4 cylinder engine and it’s a rear wheel drive car. I’ve seen a couple of different top speeds for this lovely car listed ranging from mid 50s to low 60s; which both sound awfully like we’d be thrashing the poor thing, but it’s good to point out these aren’t the slow coaches many seem to think pre-war motors are. It’s also a pretty budget friendly motor on the mileage too, you can expect to get in excess of 40 miles per gallon when driven considerately. Although these were popular cars in the late 30s, by the time the war kicked into full swing and Standard’s factories and workers were commandeered for war efforts; those years leading into the mid-40s changed the appetite and tastes of the buying public. The ‘Flying’ name was dropped and new cars, very much derived from the pre war cars, were introduced but this was all slashed to bits with the one model policy when the Standard Vanguard was introduced. And that, is a very brief overview, but what’s it like to drive? Well, hop in!