Sunbeam Tiger

[mikesride]

I saw an older fellow driving a Sunbeam Tiger thru our neighborhood today. Isnt that an UBER RARE CAR? Especialy up here in rural Canada? And... this was no trailer queen it had some driving done to it! What powers those little cars...sounded V8tish.

[BeyGon]

Originally Posted by mikesride

I saw an older fellow driving a Sunbeam Tiger thru our neighborhood today. Isnt that an UBER RARE CAR? Especialy up here in rural Canada? And... this was no trailer queen it had some driving done to it! What powers those little cars...sounded V8tish.

the very first ones had 260 Fords and then they got 289s.

[DARISC]

Very nose heavy, plow like tractors.

[nynor]

that engine is shoehorned in there. very cool little car.

[DARISC]

I test drove a used one with a 289 years ago. Given a choice, if I was interested now, I'd opt for a Monster Miata. A stock Miata has sports car cred whereas the Sunbeam was never more than an underpowered boulevard cruiser in stock form. Nice lines though. I doubt that it'll ever rank very high on a list of collectibles.

[Bill Douglas]

I love the look of them. A guy at uni with me had an Alpine. Really stylish.

[agrimmitt]

Mike: I owned a couple in the day (high school) and yes Tigers are very special cars. You still see them from time to time in CA, but since the increased demand for for these "English" performance cars keeps going up. Well less and less are seen on the road. The first cars came with a 260 and then the 289, which for value and performance is the one you want. Don't handle that good without some major front end work. Gear box is just ok, but not made for dropping the clutch hard. Wood dash and pretty nice seat for the day. Today you can get better tires to get the power somewhat to the ground. Most were ordered with the removable hard top (about 300lb) with plastic windows. Dual gas tanks, one in each rear fender contacted across the back by a single line. But in the day, you could make a fool of the Chev 327 guys and $$>money stoplight to stoplight.
If it for sale, take the time to look into it! It's a very fun car, and minilites are the rims of choice even today.
O' the cars of our youth.
Art

[nynor]

Sunbeam Tiger: the car of Agent 86 (Maxwell Smart)

"The mid-1960s Sunbeam Tiger was on Hemmings’ list of the top ten collectible cars, and there are still regular Tigers United events."

[TechnoViking]

Originally Posted by DARISC

I test drove a used one with a 289 years ago. Given a choice, if I was interested now, I'd opt for a Monster Miata. A stock Miata has sports car cred whereas the Sunbeam was never more than an underpowered boulevard cruiser in stock form. Nice lines though. I doubt that it'll ever rank very high on a list of collectibles.

A Sunbeam Tiger is a classic racing legend and a relatively rare, authentic piece of automotive history. A monster miata is a POS miata that some jackass welded a corvette engine into. My opinion, of course.

[Joe Bob]

Monster Miata's run Ford motors.....but, hey, I could be wrong...ask my wife's attorney....

[nynor]

a miata over this:

[nynor]

oh, and:

Sunbeam Tiger: the other predator - page 2 of 4

"This prototype proved far more convincing and offered a much better drive thanks to its almost 50/50 weight distribution."

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by TechnoViking

A Sunbeam Tiger is a classic racing legend

Do you mean back in the 1920's (the original Sunbeam Tiger, a true race car, is from that era)?

and a relatively rare, authentic piece of automotive history.

Yes it's relatively rare. What do you mean by "authentic"?

A monster miata is a POS miata that some jackass welded a corvette engine into.

Actually, they were put together quite well - to the extent that Mazda actually sent some of their engineers to look at it (I live not far from where they were built) and they were quite complementary to the fabricators.

My opinion, of course.

Understood. Neither apeals to me; I'm not a muscle car fan and, in my opinion, that's basically all they are (unlike Shelby's extraordinary Cobra) - little muscle cars.

..

[BeyGon]

Originally Posted by DARISC

I test drove a used one with a 289 years ago. Given a choice, if I was interested now, I'd opt for a Monster Miata. A stock Miata has sports car cred whereas the Sunbeam was never more than an underpowered boulevard cruiser in stock form. Nice lines though. I doubt that it'll ever rank very high on a list of collectibles.

So why not compare it to a model T? How many years difference with the Tiger and miata?

[DARISC]

Originally Posted by BeyGon

So why not compare it to a model T? How many years difference with the Tiger and miata?

I see your point and don't disagree. My point is that if I was looking for a cool performance sports car from the Tiger's era, it wouldn't be a Tiger (nor would it be an MGC). They're handsome cars and I don't belittle anyone who fancies them - just not my cup of that era's tea.

[pwd72s]

Cool cars...I recall the owners back in the day would place a spacer so there was an opening along the rear edge of the hood for better cooling air flow...

[89911]

A friend here who owns his own body shop did a restoration on one of these a few years ago and had it wrote up in hot rodding magazine. It was really nice and more of a reproduction of the race car then a hot rod. I think he sold it at Mecum a few years ago but drove it around until then.




Think of the Sunbeam Tiger as the Cobra's less-famous little brother. Around the same time Carroll Shelby was putting a small-block Ford into an A.C. Ace body, he was involved in doing the same thing to another English sports car, the little Sunbeam Alpine. Conceived and eventually built by The Rootes Group and initially engineered by Shelby's crew, the Alpine became a Tiger by the installation of a 260ci small-block Ford among other necessary modifications. It was a big success on the streets since it was much cheaper than the Jaguars and Corvettes it competed with. It also had great success on the track, raced by the Hollywood Sports Car team of Doane Spencer-casual HOT ROD readers will know Spencer as the creator of perhaps the nicest '32 Ford ever built.

You can still buy a Tiger for a reasonable amount of money (compared to a Cobra anyway), and base-model Alpines are also affordable, making these perfect recipients for hot rod flair. That's what David Ley of Dave's Auto Restorations (Wexford, Pennsylvania) did. Ley stumbled upon some photos of the Doane Spencer Tigers and knew that's what he wanted to build. Eventually, he found three parts cars to turn into one good car designed around the '60s race Tigers.

Ley worked every panel on his '66 Tiger, fabricating his own aluminum deck panel, trunklid, and fender flares, and grafting the hoodscoop from a '57 T-bird onto a stock Sunbeam hood. The race car windshield is made of aircraft-quality Lexan, lowered and rolled back, and in a Ley-built frame. A Dana 44 rearend was shortened to move the rear wheels in, and in keeping with the vintage racer vibe, Ley had PS Engineering build the Halibrand-like wheels in a custom offset to get them to look just right in the cut and radiused wheelwells.

The engine is a Ford Racing Performance Parts GT40 crate engine, and it's backed by the Top Loader four-speed that came in the Tiger. One of his parts cars came with a new set of headers, but Ley says he has "a pile of time" in the rest of the exhaust, which includes a crossover junction and side-exit pipes. The interior retains the '60s theme too, with Cobra reproduction seats made in England and covered in black leather, a machine-turned dash with Stewart-Warner gauges, aluminum door panels, and the original steering column, which he cut down slightly to allow a deeper dish steering wheel.

The result is a compact laser beam that Ley actually drives when the weather is nice. But, ever the idea-guy, he's already thinking of putting it on the block at Barrett-Jackson this summer to fund another undisclosed project. That's too bad, but maybe this will inspire others to consider the often-overlooked Sunbeam for their next hot rod.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by TechnoViking

A Sunbeam Tiger is a classic racing legend and a relatively rare, authentic piece of automotive history. A monster miata is a POS miata that some jackass welded a corvette engine into. My opinion, of course.

I respectfully disagree on all counts. Strongly disagree.
That's as nice as I get but I'm still in a good mood.

[s_morrison57]

Was looking for a tiger a few years back, got the 930 instead but people want lots of money for them, just check ebay, mid 30's for a nice one, lots of Alpine clones so a guy really has to do his homework, but there are few of them and the price is only going to go up. they were so low to the ground that the exhaust had to go through the frame cross bracing and they are really prone to rust there, still want one but don't think its going to happen. Wood wheel and dash, V8 power, nice looks, quick for the day, tough combo to beat.

[Dueller]

Tom Patton's which won SCCA GT2 National championship in 1999 after 20 years of trying and 30 plus years after end of production:




Barry Schonenbergers GT 2 car that also has won national SCCA Solo II chwampionships