Sunbeam Tiger

Nobody ever accused Maxwell Smart (alias Agent 86) of being the brightest gemstone in the jewelry box, but there is one thing you can say for him, he knew how to pick a car. When he cruised up to the clandestine offices of Control each week to get his newest assignment, the Sunbeam Tiger he left at the curb drew knowing smiles from teenage  auto freaks in the television audience (as well as one Jack R. Nerad of LaGrange, Illinois.)

Sunbeam underdog had a lot more to offer

There were plenty of flashier, more exotic cars that actor Don Adams (who passed away in September 2005) could have driven in the Mel Brooks-Buck Henry-created series “Get Smart,” but the Sunbeam Tiger was the perfect choice. It had American and British roots; it was cool and palpably understated, and, like Maxwell Smart himself, it was frequently underrated and a bit obscure.

Also like the Maxwell Smart character–part Barney Fife, part James Bond, –the Sunbeam Tiger was a pastiche. In the solid, stolid chassis of the Sunbeam Alpine sports car it highlighted  the heart of a falcon, in this case the Ford Falcon.

The concept  for this assemblage of big American engine in small European car was certainly not an original one. In the post World War II era alone, automotive history is littered with such projects: Nash-Healey, Allard,  Facel Vega, Iso. Of course, the most popular and most copied of these is the Shelby Cobra, the result of installing a Ford V-8 into an AC Ace.

1959 edition lacked oomph

The Sunbeam Alpine presented a very similar opportunity in the early 1960’s. Debuting in 1959, the Alpine was a civilized 2-seat British sportster, a delight  of the Rootes Group. Somewhat more luxurious than the typical British sports car of the era, the Alpine boasted a folding soft top that actually fit,  roll-up windows, and even an optional hardtop. Fitted with tailfins reminiscent  of a late-50’s Dodge, it was also a beautiful car and, by English standards, very well screwed together. Where it came up missing, as the Fifties matured into the Sixties, was in the engine bay. The 1494 cubic centimeter displacement four cylinder engine just didn’t produce enough horsepower, so even with its electronic overdrive-four-speed transmission the Alpine had a difficult  time tasting 100 miles per hour.

This led to a great deal of frustration in one U.S. West Coast honcho for Sunbeam, Ian Garrad,  and its parent Rootes Group. His frustration built as he watched what he believed to be the technically inferior AC Ace turn into a world-beater by the rapid  infusion of American V-8 power. He began to eyeball various American V-8s as the answer to his quest–Oldsmobile, Chrysler,  even the much-vaunted Chevrolet small-block–but most of the engines were too bulky for the tiny Alpine’s engine bay. Further, General Motors was not much interested in making a deal that would create a good, low-priced substitute  to its Chevrolet Corvette. So Garrad’s solution seemed to be Carroll Shelby’s solution–the recently launched  Ford 260 cubic inch V-8 that had been designed to breathe new life into the compact Ford Falcon.

Okay then,  hire Shelby!

In the true spirit of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” Garrad  employed  Shelby and fellow West Coast road racer Ken Miles to install the small Ford V-8’s into Sunbeam Alpines. The two remodeling projects proceeded in the two separate race shops in Southern California during early 1963 and by May of that year the two “prototypes” were all set  for some drive testing.

It turns out that Miles took a very basic  approach, fitting the Ford V-8 into a largely unchanged engine bay and retaining the recirculating ball steering. Shelby and Bill Carroll, his technician, schooled by the AC Ace conversion, took things farther. They moved the engine rearward in the chassis to attempt  to approximate the Alpine’s nearly 50-50 weight distribution. This  needed some reshaping of the firewall and the transmission tunnel, but the result was worth it. Shelby also installed a 4-speed manual transmission–much better than the 2-speed automatic in the Miles car–and added a rack-and-pinion steering unit. Then, rather amazingly, Shelby and Miles, now working in cooperation, did a great deal of  durability testing and development, including high-speed runs in the Mojave desert and, even more taxing, stop-and-go on California freeways.

By the Summer of ’63, the as-yet-unnamed Ford-powered Alpine was ready for a journey  across the ocean to gain the approval of Lord William Rootes of Ramsbury, who had begun his motoring career some 50 years before as a penny-a-day apprentice at Singer.

Rootes rips roads and is very happy

Despite his advanced years, Lord Rootes gave the car a thorough flogging, including suspension-testing attacks on winding English roads,  and  a 100+ mph run down a local highway and and by the time he returned to the factory, he was sold. He established an official Rootes factory project code-named Thunderbolt to improve the car further, and work on the project proceeded at speed.

By the spring of 1964, the car, now  dubbed Sunbeam Tiger in honor of Sir Henry Seagrave’s special V-12 Sunbeam land speed record car that had captured the world record at 152.33 mph in 1926, was ready for a public introduction. That came in the New York Auto Show where the car debuted with an attractive list price of $2,295 for a  4-speed manual transmission model. (A model with automatic was priced $500 higher.)

With a wheelbase of 86 inches and an overall length of 156 inches, the new Tiger was roughly spot on to the dimensions of the present-day Mazda Miata. Rootes engineers did an amazing  job preventing the car from gaining too much performance-robbing weight. At 2565 pounds, the Tiger was 285 pounds heavier than the Alpine IV, and most of that added weight came, not from the Ford engine, but from the chassis-strengthening that Rootes specified to accept the added torque and horsepower.

Hot additional package added punch

In stock trim the Tiger’s Ford V-8  provided 164 horsepower, so the resulting 0-60 time of 7.8 seconds was good but not mind-blowing. However, simultaneous with the launch, Rootes and  Carroll Shelby  began to offer what was called the L.A.T. 1 Stage 1 tuning kit that included such go-fast equipment as “wilder” cam,  heavier valve springs, performance distributor,  solid valve lifters, four-barrel carburetor, and aluminum manifold. The resulting 245 horsepower converted  the Tiger into a true Cobra-fighter.

Understandably,  the Sunbeam Tiger began to gain positive notices from the motoring press, who quickly glommed onto the Cobra connection. They also praised the Tiger as being much more civilized than the Cobra with its pleasant interior design and roll-up windows. But, unfortunately, just as the launch and first sales year were unfolding positively, dark clouds hovered around Rootes Group in Britain. Since 1960,  the company, which had long enjoyed a reputation as a caring employer, was plagued by Communist-inspired wild-cat strikes that had a huge effect on the firm’s bottom line. Finally, Lord Rootes saw the unavoidable and began to court ties with Chrysler Corporation. By early 1965, Chrysler had successfully taken over Rootes Group via an acquisition of 83.2 percent equity.

This effectively spelled the impending misfortune of the Tiger, since Chrysler was not eager to continue to market a sports car that bore  a Ford powertrain. Production of the Tiger continued  into the 1967 model year, and the Mark II edition featured the larger-displacement 289 cubic inch Ford V-8, making it one of the most desirable of the Tigers. But then, after a total of 7,067 Sunbeam Tigers had rolled from the Rootes Coventry assembly line, the car went out of production for good.

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