A forgotten prototype of the supercharged Squire Eight is to see the light of day once more.

The car, an aluminium-bodied roadster complete with its iconic Squire sloping vee chromed radiator surround, dates from the early 90s. Advancing years and a change in priorities  has led the car's current owner to decide to offer the vehicle for sale, together with such manufacturing tooling and design data that remains, plus the legal and commercial title to the original Squire Motors Ltd. company name.

This gives this car a very strong provenance that links it back to the original 10 Adrian Squire manufactured machines made at Henley on Thames, and the three Remenham-built examples assembled from components in the late 1940s after Adrian Squire's death and the closure of the business.

Constructed using traditional English ash-framed coachbuilding techniques, but underpinned by an innovative semi-monocoque peripheral frame chassis with all-round independent suspension, this 'new' Squire prototype was intended to use the ex-Buick Rover V8 engine. 

Though shown at a number of exhibitions and classic car events, the prototype was never actually developed further into a road-going car. 

The company instead making the braver decision to invest its resources into component sourcing, tooling and manufacturing planning, so as to support a 10 to 15 unit a year production target.

In hindsight, the supercharged Squire Eight might be said to have been born out of time. The car's price tag put it somewhat above the comparable Morgan model – the Plus 8 – whilst starting to encroach upon the then still-reasonable restoration costs of an existing older classic, which came with  a correspondingly more assured resale value. 

At the other extreme, the 90s saw a tremendous surge in the production of neo-classics and replicas, most of whose sales appeal centered around naked power with an almost deliberate disregard for long-distance creature comfort. The Squire Eight's restrained elegance of line and all-round attention to detail was perhaps just too understated for its era's zeitgeist.

National Corvette Museum Receives Generous Donation After Sinkhole Disaster.

The sinkhole that wrecked eight prized models at the National Corvette Museum in February also hit Corvette lovers hard. While some cars emerged from the sinkhole partially damaged, others were almost completely destroyed. 

Luckily, a generous donation from a Corvette owner will help the Museum rebuild from the disaster. When Lynda Patterson got word that a 40th Anniversary "Ruby Red" Corvette fell face first into the sinkhole, she wanted to donate her own to the Museum. She called up workers at the Museum, who were thrilled to hear from her, and brought in the car April 97. 

“Seeing that other Ruby in the hole made me think that maybe I should give ours to the Museum soon. Almost twenty years ago my husband Mike and I designated that our Ruby would go to the National Corvette Museum anyway. He died in 2012 after being diagnosed with a brain tumor a year earlier,” Patterson said.

Speaking about her experience donating the Corvette, she also noted, "This is bitter-sweet. I’m so glad she’s coming here and will be enjoyed by so many.” The National Corvette Museum is located in Bowling Green, Ky. The Museum is showcasing a "Great Eight" exhibit featuring details on the sinkhole Corvettes.