Sunbeam Tiger. One mile run .....171 mph.

A friend in high school had a Sunbeam Alpine - it would occasionally make half that speed.
Ocassionally.
My brother had an Alpine. It could make it up to eighty if you could keep from dropping large parts (like the generator or even the bell housing) out on the road first.
I recall that the leather sets smelled really nice.
 
The sunbeam was a very fun to drive car , I am from Colorado so twisty mountain roads are what matters to me the handaling of the tiger was poor because of the weate , streat line the tiger hands down , the v6 sounds like a good balance though , I would like to push one on a track .

The Tiger was more than just a straight line racer. There's plenty of road races and such where they were running shoulder to shoulder with Corvettes and Cobras.

That 'weight' that you condemn took a pretty yet unremarkable Alpine and made it into a very memorable machine. While adding weight is seldom a good thing, in this case the benefit was well worth the added poundage. And contrary to what many will claim, the Tiger was not a nose heavy beast. The 260/289 was shoved far enough back to maintain a near 50/50 weight distribution. The brakes OTOH needed a serious upgrade to handle the additional power....... an upgrade that never happened.
 
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Well among other things the Tiger crowd installs rear disk brakes to help out there. I'd imagine the same could be done for the Alpine.

The Tiger/Alpine have a very clean and modern appearance that absolutely beat the pants off the styling of the MGs and Triumphs of the same era. (My opinion obviously) And the build quality was pretty good.

The V6 conversions supposedly make for a killer little overall package. The only thing I don't like about the V6 conversions is that they use the dated and not super common (these days) Ford Capri 2600/2800 60 degree V6. It would be cool to have a more modern fuel injected V6 in there.
 
That's really cool....

I'm a bit of a fanatical auto mechanic so don't try this at home. While I was staitioned overseas in Germany for ten years straight I happened on to a build that proved interesting. I bought a European spec (E21)1978 BMW 323i and the European spec 325i engine is the same engine as used in the BMW 323i less the chocked intake and exhaust of the 323i engine.....but the weight of the 323i automobile is much lighter than the 325i automobile and the suspension on the 323i automobile tracks well and better than the E30. In the acquisition process of going through the German auto wrecking yards not knowing the difference between the 325e (2.7) and the 325i (2.5) I actually put the two together, 325i head on a 325e block. The compression was uniformly too low and barely moved the car down the street. I found a turbo exhaust manifold, turbo and intake induction from a BMW 524 TDI and promptly installed it in the car. The acceleration was more than I expected, so I ordered a rebuilt short block of the 325es engine and had a 325is cylinder head rebuilt using Chevy 283 small block exhaust valves for intake valves in the 325is head to open up the flow. Added an oil cooler pump system to the oil pan and went with double sway bars one right on top of the other and De Carbon gas struts. Went with the Metric Mechanic rotors and calipers.....then made a DIY intercooler system. All done quite cheaply at a BMW Club that I was a member of.

Took the car out on Autobahn-5 which is a straight shot from Frankfurt to Heidelberg and let her rip, got up behind a turbo Porsche doing well over 240kph because my speedo cable snapped at that speed. I slipped up behind a Ferrari when it passed the Porsche and held on for dear life gaining an incredible amount of speed because the Ferrari in front of me was trying to dust me off by going faster...which he did ! The speed trap cameras on the autobahn were flashing like crazy where you turn off to go to Ramstein AFB and in the blink of an eye...I was in Heidelberg ! I didn't even get a ticket in the mail....never went that fast again, but I drove the car until I left Germany !!
 
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I saw a Sunbeam Rapier on the freeway today in the same colours as this. It looked like a sort of English version of those "finned" American cars of the 50's and 60's. I don't think the British had the same level of access to cheap steel as the Americans. :)
 
As a kid I considered myself a gearhead This one escaped my radar though. I remember the triumphs, the mgs, the only sunbeams I remember couldn't do 100mph unless they were dropped from a cargo plane:idea:
I always thought the triumphs (tr6,7,8 were kinda cool)
Hey wait, I'm pretty sure njcanuck has a sunbeam. Not sure which one. Maybe an alpine:idea:
 
Gotta love auto correct.
I went back to read what i wrote and gearhead became meathead. (Maybe the same thing anyway :D
 
That would be Hillman Minx, and not a British Leyland product. Sunbeam was part of the Rootes Group, along with Hillman, Humber, Singer, Talbot, Commer and Karrier. Later purchased by Chrysler. Various models were imported to the US, like the Hillman Imp rear-engine compact, the Humber Snipe and Super Snipe, Commer camper van, etc.
Lots o' info on wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootes_Group
Chip
 
As a kid I considered myself a gearhead This one escaped my radar though. I remember the triumphs, the mgs, the only sunbeams I remember couldn't do 100mph unless they were dropped from a cargo plane
I always thought the triumphs (tr6,7,8 were kinda cool)
Hey wait, I'm pretty sure njcanuck has a sunbeam. Not sure which one. Maybe an alpine:idea:

Don't feel alone on that one. Most people didn't know they existed......including me had it not been for my high school buddy who owned one.

The Tiger was a limited production car so there weren't tons floating around. And they shared the same body with the 4 cylinder Alpine.... some minor trim being the only obvious difference between the two. It made for great fun when you'd encounter a muscle car at a stoplight. They'd just assume it was another anemic little 4 cylinder putt putt. Until the light turned green. Make no mistake, with the stock 260 engine you wouldn't dust them off, but you'd certainly get their attention. Swap in a healthy 289 or 302 and the game changed considerably. The looks you'd get at the NEXT stoplight were classic...... slack jawed confusion mixed with embarrassment.
 
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That would be Hillman Minx, and not a British Leyland product. Sunbeam was part of the Rootes Group, along with Hillman, Humber, Singer, Talbot, Commer and Karrier. Later purchased by Chrysler. Various models were imported to the US, like the Hillman Imp rear-engine compact, the Humber Snipe and Super Snipe, Commer camper van, etc.
Lots o' info on wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootes_Group
Chip

An old bandmate had a Humber Super Snipe. Man,that thing could move,and talk about luxurious! Those guys made one hell of a straight six:)
Occasionally (usually we were gassed up better than the car at that point) we would go out to the barn and take turns trying to crank start it.Yeah,easier than it sounds!
We never understood a car at that trim level (and from that era:dunno:) still having a crank. I guess they were trying to outsmart Lucas....
 
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