Saturday, March 21, 2009
I was reading one of my car books when I happened upon an odd discovery under a quick note about the end of the Sunbeam Tiger. This is a long and complicated story, but I'll tell it however accurate I can from memory:
You know the Hillman Husky I was talking about that was on Craigslist? Well, that car led to the birth, and eventually demise, of the Sunbeam Tiger.
It turns out that the Sunbeam Alpine, basically the Tiger before they added a Ford V8, was based on the Hillman Husky, and Sunbeam was part of the Rootes Group, too. When Shelby started putting 260ci Ford V8s into the Alpines and naming them Sunbeam Tigers, they became major, yet overlooked, Shelby performance machines. These cars were successful in racing and go for much money today.
The Tiger may have continued like the Shelby versions of the Mustang, but when Chrysler took over the Rootes Group in 1968, they detested. Chrysler did not like having ford engines in the small Sunbeam sports car, but theirs wouldn't fit. So they just killed off this beautiful machine, and the whole Rootes Group a few years later when they failed to turn a profit. So you have Chrysler to blame for the demise of the Sunbeam Tiger and the whole Rootes enterprise. Photo from modernracer.com
