I grew up in the 1960s and was mildly familiar with the Humber automobile, but I don’t ever recall seeing anything named the Super Snipe. Turns out it was a higher-end car built between 1938 and 1967 by the British firm of Humber Ltd. Whether Humber had any sort of distribution network in the U.S. isn’t something I can much about, so how this decent-looking Estate Wagon found its way over here with left-hand-drive isn’t known. As a project, it can be found in Plainfield, New Jersey, and is available here on eBay for $1,000 so far, reserve unmet.
The Super Snipe borrowed the best of two Humber products which put a larger engine into a smaller platform and body, making for a fairly quick car for its time. It was not an entry-level car, so it appealed to professionals and upper government types. By the time the seller’s station wagon was built in 1959, the car was in its fifth series (which ran from 1958 to 1967). They used a 2.65-liter overhead value inline-6 for propulsion. While a 3-speed manual transmission was standard, an optional automatic with overdrive was available.
How or why Humber came up with the name Super Snipe for the name isn’t known. Snipe as a word, on one hand, stands for a wading bird with a long beak. However, it could also be used to describe someone taking potshots with a weapon. Let’s hope the company had the latter connotation in mind. The seller’s wagon has a familiar look to it. For me, from one angle it looks like a Rambler from the same era, yet other angles suggest a Tri-Five Chevy. Rust doesn’t seem to be a huge issue, but the white-over-grey paint has seen better days.
This wagon has room for six passengers and has traveled some 53,000 miles in 65 years. We’re told it was in running condition as recently as three years ago, with the interior holding up better than the exterior. There’s even an older folding lawn chair in the back – I wonder if that comes with the deal? The motor is said to be original, and the carburetor has been rebuilt, but no mention is made of whether it will start and/or idle. If you’re looking for an English car that no one else in your circles has, this Humber could very well be it.
Wow, this is cool. I really want an early ’50s Super Snipe, but they just don’t seem to exist in the U.S.
And to be fair, I really want a lot of things. :)
Overhead value? and I hope the company DIDN’T have the latter in mind. Hopefully it was the bird. Just kidding, Russ, normally makes such few mistakes. Humbers were actually high class cars, like Sunbeam or Vanden Plas. Some say it was the British ’57 Packardbaker, and a worthy comparison. The Packardbaker was also a nice car. Probably more like the British Olds or Buick, not a Rolls( or Caddy) but getting there. It appears to be a dohc, but it’s a pushrod motor and a hemi to boot. Compared to most European cars, these were actually quite powerful. This car could do 90mph, and 0-60 in 17.5 sec. Okay, not 6 pack Cuda, but for 1959, it must have passed them all, or most, anyway. Very cool car, parts are on the next container, and will be here in 3 months,,,4 months, whataya mean you lost it( turns up in Bengladesh).
Someone in my past had a Humber Super Snipe( not just a regular Snipe), maybe the childhood doctor that made house calls. He had a flair for odd cars.
My Dad had an early 1961 Snipe the same front as this, the later 1961 snipe had the twin head lights. That was the first car I actually drove at over 100 m.p.h. it had high compression pistons and water injection, he said that was to help keep the valves cool. I raced a MK 3 Zodiac along the straights past the Napier Airport at night and beat him. We were heading down to Hastings to see Cousins etc 4 of us in the car and it was dark and suddenly the old man says alright you can back it down now you have proven your point to that guy. S*%t I though he was asleep hahaha. A great memory for me at the age of 15 and hadn’t long had my license so that would have been about 1966 or 7
I’ve never seen a Humber, but I worked with a fellow who had one while being stationed in Britain. He said the car was a tank but he liked it.
I owned its buddy that was very similar–except a two door–back in the 90’s. It was the 1959 Hillman Husky. I put the later Sunbeam Alpine motor and tranny in it. Also, I used the 32/26 DGV webber progressive down-draught carb (2680-033B). It was SO LIGHT- and a screemer– With one OSCAR headlamp mounted centally on the front bumper, my friends called it “The CyClops” .of cartoon fame. Great Fun- and Quite rare. Last I saw it was in San Francisco about 5 years ago. Sorta wish I had it back! Its windshield was part number FCW1. For parts gurus, that was an iconic number. I think I got the last one! HA! ” Them Da*n Foreign Cars!” HA! they took off after 1959. Love what we do.
The 1959 Hillman Husky was also about half the size of the Humber Super Snipe. My second ever boss had a 1948 Humber Super Snipe Pullman (Limo) that was a great car to drive.
Not like I would know, but I read, just a Humber Snipe( not a super) was similar to the Humber Pullman Limo, only shorter, last made in 1947.
BTW, these early roots group cars boasted the first assembly line Momocoup chassis, I had heard. Also, the MGB boasted this claim-to-fame. Yes, assembled in Scottland I believe, These Roots Group cars may have the legit title?
In this case it’s Rootes.
It looks to be in pretty good shape for its age. It had to be put away somewhere where it held up its condition. @ ODD Jim. I too had a Hillman Husky and when I lived in NJ, I bought it from a guy in my own town!! I sold it on Ebay to a guy in Texas. His name was Hillman. Can you guess why he bought it? No… his name wasn’t Husky!!
Probably because there were so many hills in NJ? Or, because his roots were there? Thanks for the comment. Pretty rare vehicle with CUTE appeal. Not unlike the Morris Minor Woodie, or the Subaru-360 that looks like it needs a giant roller-skate-key projecting out of the rear lid..
Yet, What is a Roller-skate-Key anyway? Yep! I am really old. Google it!
To get a proper perspective of this wagon here are some specs that I got from Google.
Engine type Inline 6
Displacement 3.0 l (181 ci / 2965 cc)
Power 123 ps (121 bhp / 90 kw)
Torque 220 Nm (162 lb-ft)
Power / liter 41 ps (41 hp)
Power / weight 73 ps (72 bhp) / t
Torque / weight 131 Nm (96 lb-ft) / t
Efficiency 9 PS per l/100 km
Transmission 3 speed manual or 3 speed automatic
Layout front engine, rear wheel drive
It also weighed 3710 lbs and did about 17 mpg. (On a good day!)
Three litre motor was in the later model
I have heard of the Super Snipe, a wonderful name, hard to forget! Googled it and one of the images is an estate with dual headlights and roof racks that looks awesome. Yeah, I’ll put one in my bucket :^}
Awesome find! I love these old 50’s and 60’s British cars. If I wasn’t waiting to see how much Uncle Sam was going to gouge me for this year? And if my wife wouldn’t clobber me? I’d bid.
Just show your wife the recent bulldozer listing to prove that you are being extremely reasonable by wanting to purchase this. “You think that this is a big deal? You should see the bulldozer that I almost bought two weeks ago!”
Don’t forget the Positive ground, back then one had to think. I gave a trunk mounted reverb to my buddy that had an English Ford Cortina. He ran the power wire to the battery and wrapped the metal reverb in a towel. It was fun to watch 4 guys exiting that car when it lit up. Fun times for sure.
Dynamo conversion from Pos. ground to Neg. ground. i.e. Brit to Yank.
Look at the Generator. You should see a large brown wire and a smaller wire connecting to a terminal marked F (for Field). Pull off the wire to the Field terminal. Connect a short jumper wire to the large brown connection (make sure you have metal-to-metal contact). Touch the jumper “lightly / slightly” to the Field terminal on the generator. You should see sparks, touch again (more sparks), and again (again more sparks). Now disconnect the jumper wire from the large brown connection, and re-connect the Field terminal wire. Your generator is now polarized negative earth.
Ammeter
Remove the ammeter from the instrument panel leaving wiring connected and reverse the brown wire connections on the back side of the ammeter. It is easy to tell if you have done this correctly the gauge will simply read “backwards”.
Replace the ammeter in the instrument panel.
Your car is now wired for negative ground (negative earth).
You can now reconnect the battery with a new negative earth cable and install a new radio, tape player, CD player, radar detector, or even plug devices into your cigar lighter without worrying about frying components.
Greetings All,
These are rare in the states but someone in New England sold these and Riley in the area.
I was looking at 2 used vehicles and this was one of them.
The car checked any of the boxes I needed being used. Made well.
Looking back I must have had a thing for taxi looking vehicles.
I passed on it though and bought the car next to it a Mercedes 220Sb fintail.
Had a long relationship with Fintails.
My favourite Mercedes of all. Mine was a 1959 220b.
The Snipe is actually a really fast game bird. Humber had the Hawk, the Snipe and the Sceptre. The wagon versions used to be known in the UK as a “shooting brake” as the aristocratic hunter types took them out on day shoots for grouse, pheasant and snipe. My old man had a Sceptre wagon in the early 70s. They were to Hillman what Lexus is to Toyota.
I believe the word Lexus was the abbreviated Luxury Export United States.
I’ve been hunting for a Snipe.
A guy I went to high school with back in the 60s pulled one of those Super Snipes (older body style, looked kind of like a Rolls) out of a junkyard, got it running and drove it for a few months – until something broke on it that he couldn’t find a replacement part for. So back it went to the junkyard. Never saw it again.
The Super Snipe Shooting Brake came into its own in the UK in the early 1960s with the opening of Motorway (the M1 and M2). Various police forces found that it the vehicle was, arguably, the biggest car they could readily source to carry the complement of signs/traffic cones/flashing lights /etc.,required to deal with the steadily increasing number of Motorway road smashes. Once under way they had a reasonable turn of speed, and were generally referred to, because of their colour, as “White Elephants” by the less respectful member of the motoring fraternity.
I know a fellow that is restoring a sedan in this vintage for a customer… Neat car
My favourite Mercedes of all. Mine was a 1959 220b.
My next project? English version of a 55 Chevy, 350 small block with 4 speed and a good rear, real neat sleeper, only problem is my wife said I’ll be changing my name to Mr Cartone- living in a large cardboard box on the service road by the expressway👍😀
Classic British interior- leather seats and lots of walnut veneer, especially those seldom used fold down trays in the back of the front seats.
Hi Howard. True, the car my boss owned was classed as a 1948 due to it only arriving in Southern Rhodesia in that year and indeed it was just a stretched Super Snipe.