Sunbeam Tiger
The Sunbeam Tiger was a muscle car version of the " Series" Sunbeam Alpine.
The Sales Manager of Rootes Group for the West Coast of the USA, Ian Garrad, realized that the image of the Sunbeam Alpine was a touring car and not a sports car. And he wanted to change that image, where he took the recent success of the Shelby Cobra as a guide. He and Doane Spencer, a racer from California, studied a series of V8 engines and decided that the new Windsor V8 engine from Ford with a displacement of 4261 cc (260 ci. ) And an output of 164 bhp ( 121 kW ) would fit well between the longitudinal members of the Alpine.
Sunbeam asked Carroll Shelby to produce a working prototype and gave this a budget of U.S. $ 10,000. The prototype was made by the Shelby employee George Boskoff and the result good enough votes to be sent as a production pattern to England.
A second Alpine Series II was Ken Miles, a former Shelby employee, good racers and car builders passed, and he built in less than a week a 4261 cc - V8 engine and a 2 -speed automatic, and that for only 600 U.S. $. The prototype of Ken Miles was kept for some time by the Rootes Motors Inc. in Los Angeles and then delivered to a private buyer.
After extensive design studies, the Rootes Group, leaving the development and testing of production start- Jensen Motors in Wolverhampton. Jensen Motors then produced the Sunbeam Tiger. It 7085 cars were produced in three series ( the work differed only 2 series, Mark I and Mark II, but since the official Mark I - production, the bodies of two Alpine -Series - Series IV and V - used, called Sunbeam Tiger - enthusiasts the specimens produced later commonly referred to as "Mark 1A "). From Mark II, only 536 copies were made , so that these tigers with the 289 CI. Machine ( 4735 cc ) and 200 bhp (147 kW) are very rare today. Amazingly, both prototypes - both of Shelby and Miles survives to this day, as well as some historically interesting Tiger models.
Production of the Tiger only lasted from 1964 to 1967, when Chrysler bought up the Rootes Group. You could not honestly expect that Chrysler would continue to sell a car with Ford Motor and Chrysler itself had no suitable motor. Chrysler V8 engines have all the distributor on the rear of the engine, and so it was not possible to install these engines without large and expensive conversions in the engine compartment of the Sunbeam. Thus, the production of the Tiger has been set.
Two works cars of the Rootes Group had 1964 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the start, but with little success. The teams Procter / Blumer and Dubois / Ballist fell early from the race due to engine failure.
The Sunbeam Tiger is today as a classic sports car very popular and has an amazing potential for historic racing competitions.
In pop culture, it remembers the car in which Maxwell Smart in the first scenes of "Get Smart" in the "Control Headquarters " was driving to work.
Note: The name of Sunbeam Tiger has been used for a very different model 1925. The Sunbeam Tiger 1925 was a racing car with a V12 aero engine. At first, this vehicle was called Ladybird (Ladybug ), but later the name was changed in Tiger. With his driver Sir Henry Segrave this car the first time exceeded 150 mph ( 241.2 km / h ). From this vehicle, a second copy was made and called Tigress ( Tigress ).