Earning its Stripes - Sunbeam Tiger

Based on the four-cylinder Alpine roadster that launched in 1959 (hence the baby tailfins), Sunbeam's V-8-powered Tiger was born of a need to compete with MGs and Triumphs in a variety of racing series. The Sunbeam's durability was not in question, but its speed was. Suitably powerful engines were not available in-house at Rootes, various European developments fell through, and developing a new engine from scratch was impossible due to the company's financial situation. So Ian Garrad, son of Rootes's competition head Norman Garrad and Rootes's West Coast boss in the U.S., saw what Carroll Shelby did with the AC Ace by turning it into the Cobra, and suggested a similar arrangement with the Alpine. Carroll Shelby's California works built the first Tiger in hopes of getting the contract to do more, but Lord Rootes instead opted to have Jensen in West Bromwich build the cars and pay Shelby a royalty instead. (A second prototype was built by racer/fabricator Ken Miles.)

A few changes to the Alpine's chassis were necessary to accommodate the two-barrel, 260-cubic-inch, 164-hp Ford Windsor V-8 and its attendant Borg-Warner T-10 four-speed transmission that Shelby recommended. (The Windsor block was two inches taller and just three and a half inches longer than the Alpine's four, so engineering challenges were reduced to finding the width within the engine bay.) A dual exhaust was routed through the frame rails, steering was changed to rack-and-pinion (for clearance as much as any accuracy gained through the type), a beefed-up cooling system was introduced, and a Dana 44 differential was installed. The unit-body structure itself was tweaked to accommodate the larger powerplant, and was made of a heavier-gauge steel. It was christened Tiger, named for a land-speed racer built in 1925.

Chairman of the Rootes Group, Lord William Edward Rootes, GBE, drove the resulting prototype himself in England. Now, Lord Rootes was not what you'd call a car guy; his company built 'em, but he was apparently quite content to be wheeled around in the back of something elegant and silent. But once Lord Rootes went for a spin--with the handbrake on, no less--he was so impressed that he personally called Henry Ford II in Detroit to request enough engines to keep production going for a while.

The Tiger easily eclipsed MG/Triumph performance, and was now competing with Corvettes and Jaguars--though at less than $3,500 to start, it was a good deal cheaper. Alas, not long after Lord Rootes gave the Tiger his personal thumbs-up in 1964, he died. In short order, Chrysler Corporation owned 30 percent of Rootes Group. From the get-go, the idea with the Tiger would be that it would remain in production as long as the Ford engines were in inventory. Chrysler's 273-cubic-inch V-8 was heavier and had its distributor at the back of the engine, causing clearance issues. Rather than re-engineer the chassis, they put the model (along with its progenitor, the four-cylinder Alpine) to rest once and for all at the end of 1967. A total of 7,065 (or so) units sold from 1964-'67.

Racing is an important part of any sports car's image, and the Tiger was no different. That said, the Tiger's racing history is slightly checkered--and we don't mean with flags. A trio of Lister-bodied Tigers entered the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans, but failed to finish as they had not been properly developed; Shelby actually refunded Rootes's development money as a result. Rally-prepped Tigers swept the podium in the 1964 Geneva Rally, and another finished fourth in the 1965 Monte Carlo Rally. A Tiger initially won the 1965 Alpine Rally (the namesake of Sunbeam's open four-cylinder sports car as far back as 1953), but was later disqualified on technical grounds. Rootes's little hybrid fared better on American soil: Initially entered in SCCA B/Production races held by the group's Pacific Coast Division, Shelby passed the racing Tiger program over to Doane Spencer's Hollywood Sports Car; driver Jim Adams achieved third in the division in 1965. And perhaps most surprising, a Shelby-prepped Tiger (driven by Road & Track photographer Gordon Chittenden) was the AHRA's national record holder for two years, tripping the beams in 12.95 seconds at 108 MPH. That same year, 1965, Stan Peterson claimed the NHRA Class C world championship with a 12.9/110 MPH run in his Tiger. But America's most famous Tiger was surely the Carnival Red example that Agent 86 drove in the opening credits of the first two seasons of Get Smart!

Mike Snay had been hot for a Tiger for the better part of a decade, when a brand-new one blew past him and his pal Darrell near the 101 off-ramp near Buellton, California, in late 1964...but it was Mike's wife, Patricia, who stumbled upon this example in the JCPenney's parking lot in Santa Maria, California, in 1974. "When I saw it, the owner's wife was trying to arrange her two small kids and her groceries inside it. I thought, it looks a little small for them. I don't usually do this, but I went out of my comfort zone, took a chance, and approached them. I said, 'It looks like you've outgrown your car.' She agreed, and I asked if she was interested in selling. Turns out, she was." Mike takes over the story from here. "The owner made me a proposition: Whatever the local Ford dealer offered on trade-in, I could have the car at that price. Well, the dealer tried to steal the Tiger in trade, but the seller was honest, and we got it for $1,600"--a screaming deal, even in late 1974 dollars. It already wore the slot mags seen here, though Mike got the original steel wheels from the original owner and has held onto them. The original spare still lives in the trunk.

The Tiger that Patricia found was completed on October 6, 1965, and is titled as a 1966 model--making it a so-called Series 1A "crossover" model. Eleven Tigers are said to have rolled out of Jensen's West Bromwich factory works that day. Pressed Steel, under contract to the Rootes Group, built the body; of the 2,706 Mk IA machines built, 235 of them were painted Carnival Red. Besides a VIN starting with the B38200 prefix, Series 1A Tigers feature bodies with square-cornered doors, fresh-air ventilation, and leaded body seams.

But none of that mattered in late 1974, when this was Patricia's daily driver until the second OPEC gas crisis hit. "It was my only car," Patricia tells us. "Back then, we were young and poor, and we couldn't afford more than one car each." And make no mistake, it was used--as an old family photo of a top-down Tiger delivering a Christmas tree to the Snay homestead reveals.

Of course, there were the occasional, shall we say, impromptu displays of power. "I hear stories," Mike says. "Patty raced people all the time." "It wasn't my fault," Patricia retorts. "They'd see the V-8 emblem on the side, and hear the dual exhaust and the roar of the engine..." "It didn't hurt that she's pretty," says Mike, the sly charmer. These two should take their act on the road. Oh, wait, they have.... "I know she's a great shifter," Mike says. "Once we put the Tiger up against my 428 Cobra Jet Mach 1; by the time I hooked up, she was out in front and I had to run her down. The Tiger's transmission still has the original synchros in it. She didn't wear out the gearbox at all."

Despite the occasional public display of speed, the Tiger was largely reliable: A throwout bearing went out, and Mike and Patricia repaired it in their garage; the master and slave cylinders were aluminum and failed, but were re-sleeved in bronze and have been trouble-free since; the fuel pump went out on a Tiger club fun run in the rain in Oregon, and Patricia had to keep touching a screwdriver to the SU electric fuel pump to keep it running while Mike drove. Beyond that, "just normal care and maintenance. Our Lucas electric gauges are trouble-free: Once we lost some sort of relay on the steering column that worked the gas gauge and temp gauge, but once it was changed out, everything worked. You hear these horror stories about British cars, but ours hasn't been that way at all."

Lucky for us. Our first assumption was that we'd need a crowbar and a 55-gallon drum of bacon rendering to squeeze inside; that assumption was immediately shattered, as our (admittedly top-down) drive revealed ample room inside for your equally ample tester. Ford's four-speed transmission was physically smaller than the stock Alpine unit, allowing engineers to tighten up the trans tunnel, adding to interior room. The seats look flat, but are multi-adjustable and also recline; your body weight forces the foam to give, and there's some support to be had in the framing. The telescoping wheel is adjustable at a twist of the column, and makes life easier for the rounder among us, but a couple of other ergonomic issues stand out: In first and second, the shifter is on your right leg like a frisky beagle, and the window crank is in perfect position to crack your left kneecap. The gauges are largely visible, though drivers of different heights may have their views blocked by the steering wheel, and the wooden plank they're mounted to has a sufficient amount of Ye Olde Worlde charm.

Turn the key, and the big Windsor settles in at a simmering 1,100 RPM, with just enough cam to rock you gently at idle with vibrations that come up primarily through the seat. The rumble and hum by itself seems degrees hotter than what showed up in '64 Fairlanes. Is it the shorter exhaust? Is it the open cockpit, taking layers of sound-deadening away from the experience? We can't tell...but it certainly doesn't sound or act like a two-barrel Ford 260 in there.

Get moving, and once you're used to the turn-signal stalk at your left hand (a holdover from the RHD Rootes, er, roots) you're struck by a number of things. First, if you're used to smaller-displacement machines, you discover that you're not working very hard: There's ample torque practically off-idle (the torque peak is only 2,200 RPM!), and yet the Windsor is willing to rev freely clean up to its 5,000 RPM redline. It's not full-on GT-car smooth--it's a little too raucous for that--but you can practically idle up short hills in fourth, there's so much torque on hand. Be happy for this: The shifter offers a longer-than-usual throw (despite our gorilla-length arms, we weren't certain we'd be able to reach third), though at least the clutch pedal takes up at the bottom of its lengthy travel, and so are well-matched. Also, the pedal angles for all three functions were oddly angled for us, and tired out our ankles.

You feel good and planted in the turns--more modern rubber, though hardly cutting-edge, surely helps--and the response is certainly immediate and on-point, but the body motions feel slightly exaggerated somehow. The Tiger is hardly floaty--ride quality is as talkative as you hope it would be through the controls--but the lean was a bit of a surprise. The brakes--nearly 10-inch rotors in front, with 9-inch drums in the rear, same as an Alpine of the era--require rather a lot of pedal to get started, but bite hard and bring you down from speed without drama, fuss or lockup unless you absolutely stand on the pedal.

"We've had so many cars," Mike recalls. "I got rid of my two Ford Cobra Jets, my Buick Grand National, my Datsun B210, and everything in between. But I couldn't let go of the Tiger." And so, this particular Tiger is staying in the family: The Snays are bequeathing it to their son, Cody, "as soon as he gets a house with an enclosed garage." (Cody claimed that the Tiger would be his when he was eight--he's now 26--and then hit it with a plastic baseball bat, as if to prove his point.)

Shortly after these photos were taken, the Snays were inspired to track down the previous owner of their Tiger. "The wife answered the phone and was very pleased to hear we still had it, but the husband was lukewarm, wishing all these years later that he hadn't sold," Mike says. "I told him I've tried to live honestly through his example, passing on favors and deals to others. I hope he thought about what I was saying about his character, and how it affected me. But there's something about selling your Tiger that just seems unthinkable to me...I know that this one is going to our son in great shape, and I hope he thinks of me when I'm gone."

What to Pay

1967 Sunbeam Tiger

Low $29,000

Avg $39,000

High $57,000

Club Scene

Sunbeam Tiger Owners Association

www.sunbeamtiger.org

Dues: $45/year

Pros & Cons

Pros

+ Seamless acceleration and torque

+ Fits actual human beings

+ An affordable way to taste Shelby's creativity

Cons

- It's not ours

- Some controls feel at odds with its sporting nature

- Now that Shelby is gone, how long will they remain affordable?

1967 Sunbeam Tiger

Owner's Story

I worked for a pediatrician here in Santa Maria, and he drove a Mercedes. He kept telling me that his car was in the shop, and could he borrow mine to go to the hospital? So did I let him? Always! And he'd come back with a big smile on his face, and say, "Wow, that car really goes."

People always have had an interest in that car. There were very few in Santa Maria, if any, at that time. One time, I had my niece with me, and her flowing blonde hair was blowing in the breeze; we were younger, and a policeman pulled us over. She thought maybe she'd flirt, but all he wanted to know about was the car. I told her later, "One thing I've learned in all this time...it's always about the car."

-Patricia Snay

1967 Sunbeam Tiger specs

ENGINE

Type: V-8, cast-iron block and heads

Displacement: 4,261 cc (260-cu.in.)

Bore x stroke: 96.5 x 73 mm

Compression ratio: 8.8:1

Horsepower @ RPM: 164 @ 4,400

Torque @ RPM: 258-lb.ft. @ 2,200

Main bearings: Five

Fuel system: Single two-barrel Autolite carburetor

Lubrication system: Gear-driven, internal pressure

Electrical system: 12 volts

Exhaust system: Dual exhaust

TRANSMISSION

Type: Ford "Toploader" four-speed manual, full synchromesh, with single 10-inch dry-plate clutch

Ratios:

1st: 2.32:1

2nd: 1.69:1

3rd: 1.29:1

4th: 1.00:1

Reverse: 2.32:1

DIFFERENTIAL

Type: Dana 44 axle housing; semi-floating hypoid

Ratio: 2.88:1

STEERING

Type: Rack-and-pinion

Turns, lock-to-lock: 3.1

Turning circle: 37.5 feet

BRAKES

Type: Hydraulic activation

Front/rear: 9.85 inch Girling disc/9-inch drum

CHASSIS & BODY

Construction: Unitized construction, all steel

Body style: Two-door convertible

Layout: Front-engine, rear-wheel drive

SUSPENSION

Front: Independent; unequal-length wishbones, coil springs, anti-roll bar

Rear: Rigid axle; semi-elliptic leaf springs, Panhard rod

WHEELS & TIRES

Wheels: Stamped steel

Front/rear: 13 x 4.5 inches

Tires, front/rear: 6.00 x 13 inches

WEIGHTS & MEASURES

Wheelbase: 86 inches

Overall length: 155.5 inches

Overall width: 60.5 inches

Overall height: 51.5 inches

Front track: 51.75 inches

Rear track: 48.5 inches

Curb weight: 2,660 pounds

CAPACITIES

Crankcase: 5 quarts

Cooling system: 14.5 quarts

Fuel tank: 13.5 gallons

Transmission: 4 pints

CALCULATED DATA

Hp per liter: 38.49

Weight per hp: 16.22 pounds

Weight per cu.in.: 10.23 pounds

PERFORMANCE

0-60 MPH: 8.6 seconds *

1/4-mile ET: 16.5 seconds @ 89 MPH *

Top speed: 120 MPH **

*Car and Driver, November 1964, test of a Mk I Tiger

**Factory figure

PRICE

Base price: $3,499