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Sunbeam Tiger
The current Sunbeam Tiger Wiki page, although it has reached "Featured Article" status, contains many errors that are the result of misplaced faith in references, that are known by Tiger owners to be inaccurate. The page below is a workspace where I will try to present edited information, following the original page's format, based on sources that the Tiger community believes to be accurate based on independent verification by the Tiger owners. If you have comments on what you see below, please write them up in this section (log in and click the 'edit source' button immediately above), or email me direct.TheoSmit (talk) 14:20, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

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Article Start
The Sunbeam Tiger is a high-performance V8 version of the British Rootes Group's Sunbeam Alpine roadster, developed in part by American racing driver and entrepreneur Carroll Shelby and produced from 1964 until 1967. Shelby had carried out a similar V8 conversion on the AC Ace to create the Shelby Cobra, and Shelby proposed to produce the Tiger at his facility in America using bodies supplied by Rootes. Rootes decided instead to contract the assembly work to Jensen at West Bromwich in England, and pay Shelby a royalty on every car produced.

Two major versions of the Tiger were built: the Series I (1964-66) was fitted with the 260 cuin Ford V8; the Series II, of which only 536 were built in the final year of Tiger production, was fitted with the larger Ford 289 cuin engine. Two extensively modified versions of the Series I competed in the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans, but neither completed the race. Rootes also entered the Tiger in European rallies with some success, SCCA road racing in America, and for two years it was the American Hot Rod Association's national record holder over a quarter-mile drag strip.

Production ended in June 1967 even though the car was a commercial success. Through the mid-1960's Chrysler had assumed control of the Rootes Group, and the cost of updating the Tiger to fit a Chrysler engine combined with upcoming more-stringent safety regulations was judged to be uneconomical by the Chrysler management team.

Background
The Sunbeam Tiger was a development of the Rootes in 1958 with production starting in 1959. Rootes realised that the Alpine needed more power to compete successfully in world markets, but lacked a suitable engine and the resources to develop one. The company therefore approached Ferrari to redesign the standard inline-four cylinder engine, recognising the sales cachet that "powered by Ferrari" would be likely to bring. Negotiations initially seemed to go well, but ultimately broke down.

In 1962 racing driver and Formula 1 champion Jack Brabham proposed to Rootes competition manager Norman Garrad the idea of fitting the Alpine with a Ford V8 engine, which Garrad relayed to his son Ian, then the West Coast Sales Manager of Rootes American Motors Inc. Ian Garrad lived close to where Carroll Shelby had his Shelby American operation, which had done a similar V8 conversion for the British AC Ace to create the Shelby Cobra.

Initial prototypes
According to journalist William Carroll, after measuring the Alpine's engine bay with "a 'precision' instrument of questionable antecedents" – a wooden yardstick – Ian Garrad despatched his service manager Walter McKenzie to visit the local new car dealerships, looking for a V8 engine that might fit. McKenzie returned with the news that the Ford 260 V8 engine appeared to be suitable, which apart from its size advantage was relatively light at 440 lb. Ian Garrad asked Shelby for an idea of the timescale and cost to build a prototype, which Shelby estimated to be eight weeks and $10,000. He then approached Brian Rootes, head of sales for the Rootes Group, for funding and authorisation to build a prototype, to which Brian Rootes agreed.

Ian Garrad, impatient to establish whether the conversion was feasible, commissioned racing driver and fabricator Ken Miles to build another proof of concept vehicle as quickly as he could. Miles was provided with a budget of $800, a Series II Alpine, a Ford V8 engine and a 2-speed automatic transmission, and in about a week he had a running V8 conversion.

Shelby began work on his prototype, the white car as it came to be known, in February 1963, and by the end of April it was ready for trial runs around Los Angeles. Ian Garrad and John Panks, director of Rootes Motors Inc. of North America, tested an early version of the car and were so impressed that Panks wrote a glowing report to Brian Rootes: "we have a tremendously exciting sports car which handles extremely well and has a performance equivalent to an XX-K Jaguar ... it is quite apparent that we have a most successful experiment that can now be developed into a production car."

Provisionally known as the Thunderbolt, the Shelby prototype was much more refined than the Miles version, and used a Borg-Warner 4-speed manual transmission. The Ford V8 was only 3.5 inches longer than the Alpine's 4-cylinder engine it replaced, so the primary concern was the engine's width. Like Miles, Shelby fabricator George Boskoff found that the Ford V8 would only just fit into the Alpine engine bay. Shelby later said: "I think that if the figure of speech about the shoehorn ever applied to anything, it surely did to the tight squeak in getting that 260 Ford mill into the Sunbeam engine compartment. There was a place for everything and a space for everything, but positively not an inch to spare."

Development
All Rootes products had to be approved by Lord Rootes, who was reportedly "very grumpy" when he learned of the work that had gone into the Tiger project without his knowledge. But he agreed to have the Shelby prototype shipped over from America in July 1963 for him and his team to assess. He insisted on driving the car himself, and was so impressed that shortly after returning from his test drive he contacted Henry Ford II directly to negotiate a deal for the supply of Ford V8 engines. Rootes placed an initial order for 3000, the number of Tigers it expected to sell in the first year, the largest single order Ford had ever received for its engines from an automobile manufacturer. Not only did Lord Rootes agree that the car would go into production, but he decided that it should be launched at the 1964 New York Motor Show, only eight months away, despite the company's normal development cycle from "good idea" to delivery of the final product being three to four years.

Installing such a large engine in a relatively small vehicle required some modifications, although the exterior sheet metal remained essentially the same as the Alpine's. Necessary chassis modifications included moving from the Burman recirculating ball steering mechanism to a more modern rack and pinion system. Shelby's fabricator Boskoff had fitted a MG rack; the Rootes engineers commissioned a rack from British manufacturer Engineering Products

The Girling-manufactured brakes used 9.85 in discs at the front and 9 in drums at the rear. The suspension was independent at the front, using coil springs, and at the rear had a live axle and semi-elliptic springs. Apart from the addition of a Panhard rod to better locate the rear axle, stiffer springs (compared to the Alpine's) were fitted front and rear to cope with the weight of the V8 drivetrain, as well as recalibrated shock absorbers. The Tiger's braking system was identical to that of the standard Alpine. The battery was moved from the Alpine location beneath the rear seat to the boot to improve the front/rear weight distribution; this in turn required the Alpine's upright spare wheel in the boot to be repositioned to lie horizontally beneath a false floor. The kerb weight of the car increased from the 2220 lbs of the standard Alpine to 2525 lbs. Nevertheless the Tiger's front-to-back weight ratio is substantially similar to the Alpine's, at 51.7/48.3 front/rear.

Shortly before its public unveiling at the New York Motor Show in April 1964 the car was renamed from Thunderbolt to Tiger, inspired by Sunbeam's 1925 land-speed-record holder.

Production
Shelby had hoped to be given the contract to produce the Tiger in America, but Rootes wanted to maintain complete quality control, so it was decided to build the car in England. The Rootes factory at Ryton did not have the capacity to build the Tiger, so the company contracted the job to Jensen in West Bromwich. Any disappointment Shelby may have felt was tempered by an offer from Rootes to pay him a royalty (approximately $5 per car) on every Tiger built.

Jensen was able to take on assembly of the Tiger because its assembly contract for the Volvo P1800 had recently been cancelled. An additional factor in the decision was that Jensen's chief engineer Kevin Beattie and his assistant Mike Jones had previously worked for Rootes, and understood how the company operated. The first of 14 Jensen-built prototypes were based on the Alpine III bodyshell, until the Series IV became available at the end of 1963.

Jensen assembly of Tigers began in June 1964, little more than a year after the completion of the Shelby prototype. Painted and trimmed bodies were supplied by Pressed Steel in Oxfordshire, and the engines and gearboxes directly from Ford in America. The oft-quoted story, that describes the use of a sledgehammer to bash in part of the already primed and painted bulkhead to allow the engine to be slid into place, may have occurred at Thrupp & Maberly during prototype construction, but Jensen production used specially made steel panels to replace sections of the transmission tunnel and firewall. Jensen was soon able to assemble up to 300 Tigers a month, which were initially offered for sale only in North America. The first 56 Tigers assembled had to be fitted with a Borg-Warner 4-speed all-synchromesh manual gearbox, until Ford resolved its supply problems and was able to provide an equivalent unit as used in the Ford Fairlane.

Dozens performance modifications were available from dealers. The original 260 CID engine was considered only mildly tuned at 164 hp, and some dealers offered modified versions with up to 245 hp for an additional $250. These modifications were particularly noticeable to the driver above 60 mph, although they proved problematic for the standard suspension and tyres, which were perfectly tuned for the stock engine. A 1965 report in the British magazine Motor Sport concluded that "No combination of an American V8 and a British chassis could be happier."

Versions
The Tiger's production spanned three visually distinct groups, although Rootes only explicitly designated two, the "Tiger 260" and the "Tiger 289". Enthusiasts generally refer to the first group as the Mark I, produced with the body panels used on the Alpine Series IV; the second group as the Mark 1A, produced with the Alpine Series V body panels, and finally the Mark II, also built using the body panels used on the Alpine Series V, but with the larger Ford 289 cuin, improved transmission gearing, and cosmetic trim differences.

The name 'Tiger' was chosen to honour Sir Henry Seagrave's land-speed-record breaking car in favour of the earlier 'Thunderbolt' designation. However, Rootes had to make a deal with Leyland to be allowed to use the name in Britain. In continental Europe, the Panhard Tigre and Messerschmitt Tiger were already on the market, and therefore the car was marketed as the "Alpine 260" and then "Alpine 289" throughout the European continent and in South Africa.

The overall number of cars produced is reported differently by several sources. Jensen production records indicate the production (including pilot production cars) of 3767 Mark I's in 1964-1965; 2706 Mark 1A Tigers built in 1965-1966; and 536 Mark II's in 1966-1967. Additionally, 73 Mark 1 Tigers were exported to South Africa in complete knock-down (CKD) form and assembled there, with unique serial numbers outside of the range of Jensen-produced cars. The International Registry of Sunbeam Tigers reports the survival of approximately 3000 Tigers up to 1993. The production total of Mark II's can be confused because the two pilot production units were serialized as B382100001 and B382100002 while the remainder of the known Mark II production spans B382100100 to B382100633. This can be interpreted to mean that 633 Mark 2 Tigers were built; however, there are no known examples of Tigers in the serial number range B382100003 to B382100099, while approximately half of the remainder were confirmed to exist by owners' reports as of 1993.

The Series II Tiger, fitted with the larger Ford 289 cuin, was intended exclusively for export to America and was never marketed in the UK, although six right-hand drive models were sold to the Metropolitan Police for use in traffic patrols and high-speed pursuits; four more went to the owners of important Rootes dealerships.

All Tigers were fitted with a single Ford twin-choke carburettor. The compression ratio of the larger Series II engine was increased from the 8.8:1 of the smaller block to 9.3:1. Other differences between the versions included upgraded valve springs (the 260 had developed a reputation for self-destructing if pushed beyond 5000 rpm), an engine-oil cooler, an alternator instead of a dynamo, a larger single dry plate hydraulically operated clutch, wider ratio transmission, and some rear-axle modifications. There were also cosmetic changes: speed stripes instead of chrome strips down the side of the car, a modified radiator grille, and removal of the headlamp cowls. All Tigers were fitted with the same 4.5 in wide steel disc bolt-on wheels as the Alpine IV, and Dunlop RS5 5.90 x cross-ply tyres. The lack of space in the Tiger's engine bay required a few unorthodox solutions to ease maintenance: the rearmost left spark plug is accessible through a hole in the bulkhead for instance, normally sealed with a rubber bung, and the oil filter had to be relocated from the lower left on the block to the front of the left cylinder head.

Series I
The Ford V8 as fitted to the Tiger produced 164 bhp @ 4400 rpm, sufficient to give the car a 0–60 mph time of 8.6 seconds and a top speed of 120 mph.

In 1964, its first year of production, all but 56 of the 1649 Series I Tigers assembled were shipped to North America, where it was priced at $3499. In an effort to increase its marketability to American buyers the car was fitted with "Powered by Ford 260" badges on each front wing beneath the Tiger logo. The Series I was unavailable in the UK until March 1965, when it was priced at £1446. It was sold in South Africa for R3350.

Series II
Priced at $3842, the Series II Tiger was little more than a re-engined Mark IA; by comparison, a contemporary V8 Ford Mustang sold for $2898. The larger 289 cuin Ford engine improved the Tiger's 0–60 mph time to 7.5 seconds, and increased the top speed to 122 mph. Officially the Series II Tiger was only available in the US, where it was called the Tiger II. By the time the Series II car went into production Chrysler was firmly in charge of Rootes, and the "Powered by Ford" shields were replaced by "Sunbeam V-8" badges.

Demise
Rootes had always been insufficiently capitalised, and losses resulting from a damaging thirteen-week strike at one of its subsidiaries, British & Light Steel Pressings, coupled with the expense of launching the Hillman Imp, meant that by 1964 the company was in serious financial difficulties. At the same time, Chrysler was looking to boost its presence in Europe, and so a deal was struck in June 1964 in which Chrysler paid £12.3 million ($34.44 million) for a large stake in Rootes, although not a controlling one. As part of the agreement Chrysler committed not to acquire a majority of Rootes voting shares without the approval of the UK government, which was keen not to see any further American ownership of the UK motor industry. In 1967 Minister of Technology Anthony Wedgewood Benn approached BMH and Leyland to see if they would buy out Chrysler and Rootes and keep the company British, but neither had the resources to do so. Later that year Chrysler was allowed to acquire a controlling interest in Rootes for a further investment of £20 million.

Compounding these problems, upcoming safety regulation changes were going to mandate a substantial redesign of the chassis and manufacturing a car powered by a competitor's engine was unacceptable to the new owner. Chrysler's own 273 small-block V-8 was too large to fit under the Tiger's bonnet without major modifications due to the 273's overall size as well as its rear-mounted distributor. Chrysler's big-block V8 had a front-mounted distributor but was significantly larger. Shortly after the takeover Chrysler ordered that production of the Tiger was to end when Rootes' stock of Ford V8 engines was exhausted; Jensen assembled the last Tiger on 27 June 1967. In 1966 Chrysler had added its pentastar logo to the car's badging, and in its marketing literature de-emphasised the Ford connection, simply describing the Tiger as having "an American V-8 power train".

Rootes' design director Roy Axe commented later that "The Alpine and Tiger were always oddballs in the [Rootes] range. I think they [Chrysler] didn't understand it, or have the same interest in it as the family cars – I think it was as simple as that."

The Tiger name was resurrected in 1972 when Chrysler introduced the Avenger Tiger, a limited-edition modified Hillman Avenger intended primarily for rallying.

Competition history
Three racing Tigers were constructed for the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans, a prototype and two that were entered in the race. Costing $45,000 each, they were highly modified versions of the production cars, fitted with fastback coupe bodies produced by Lister. But they were still steel monocoques, with some aluminum panels however, the Le Mans Tigers were 66 lb heavier than a road-going Tiger at 2615 lb, and almost 600 lb more than the winning Ferrari. They used an aluminum BorgWarner T10 close-ratio racing transmission.

Both Tigers suffered early mechanical failures, and neither finished the race. The engines had been prepared by Shelby but had not been properly developed, and as a result overheated; Shelby eventually refunded the development cost to Rootes. All three of the Le Mans Tigers have survived.

Once Rootes had made the decision to put the Tiger into production, one of the pre-production Tiger chassis, minus engine and transmission, was shipped to Shelby American, who was asked to transform the car into a racing Tiger. Shelby's competition Tiger made early appearances in the B Production Class of Pacific Coast Division SCCA races, which resulted in some "highly successful" publicity for the new car. But Shelby was becoming increasingly preoccupied with development work for Ford, and so in September 1964 the racing project was transferred to Sports Car Forum in Columbus Ohio, a Rootes dealership, who mounted a highly successful factory sponsored racing campaign that won Rootes a SCCA National Championship in 1964 with an Alpine driven by Don Sesslar. Their Tiger racing program in late 1964 produced immediate results and an invitation to the first SCCA Run-Off where SCF driver Dan Carmichael finished 5th in Bp. Over the winter of 1964-5 the car was revised and all useable parts were stripped off the Shelby body and bolted on to a new Tiger tub. Don Sesslar raced it quite successfully in 1965 in the eastern half of the US scoring National Points wins at VIR and Mid-Ohio. He set track records at three tracks and qualified for the Run-Offs with 28 National points, more than any other Tiger competing in that year. The SCF Tiger survives and frequents vintage road races, usually driven by John Morton. Meanwhile on the West Coast, Rootes arranged a racing program with the Hollywood Sports Car dealership, whose Tiger driver Jim Adams achieved a third place finish in the Pacific Coast Division in 1965. The HSC Tiger was exquisitely prepared by [Doane Spencer]. Their 18 national points also qualified them for the Run-Offs where both Rootes sponsored Tigers were crashed out on the first lap. At the end of the 1965 season Rootes parted with HSC and transferred the HSC Tiger to Vincent Motors in Pasadena for preparation for the 1966 season. Ian had various drivers race the car but Ron Dykes took it to the 1966 Run-Offs where he managed the Tiger's best national finish, in 2nd place. A Tiger driven by Peter Boulton and Jim Latta finished twelfth overall and first in the small GT class at the 1965 Dayton Continental. The Tiger was also raced on quarter-mile drag strips, and for two years was the American Hot Rod Association's national record holder, reaching a speed of 108 mph in 12.95 seconds.

Rootes entered the Tiger in European rallies, taking first, second and third places in the 1964 Geneva Rally. Two Tigers took part in the 1965 Monte Carlo Rally, one finishing fourth overall, the highest placing by a front-engined rear-wheel drive car, and the other eleventh. After finally having sorted out the engine overheating problem by fitting a forward-facing air scoop to the bonnet, Rootes entered three Tigers in the 1965 Alpine Rally, one of which crossed the finishing line as outright winner. Scrutineers later disqualified the car however, because it had been fitted with undersized cylinder head valves. By the end of the 1966 Acropolis Rally though, it had become clear that low-slung sports cars such as the Tiger were unsuited to the increasingly rough-terrain rally stages, and the car was withdrawn from competition soon after. In the words of Ian Hall, who drove the Tiger in the Acropolis Rally, "I felt that the Tiger had just had it – it was an out of date leviathan".

In popular media
The 1965 Tiger Series I gained some exposure on American television as the car of choice for Maxwell Smart in the spoof spy series Get Smart. The Tiger was used for the first two seasons in the opening credits, in which Smart screeched to a halt outside his headquarters, and was used through the remainder of the series in several episodes. Some of the scenes featured unusual modifications such as a retractable James Bond-style machine gun that could not have fitted under the Tiger's bonnet, so rebadged Alpine models were used instead.

Don Adams, who played the protagonist Maxwell Smart, gained possession of the Tiger after the series ended and later gave it to his daughters; it is reportedly on display at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. During its early years Rootes advertised the car extensively in Playboy magazine and lent a pink Tiger with matching interior to 1965 Playmate of the Year Jo Collins for a year.

The Tiger also featured in the 2008 film adaptation of the Get Smart TV series. A replica Tiger had to be constructed using a stock Sunbeam Alpine and re-created Tiger badging as no available Tiger could be found in Canada, where the film was produced. The production team recorded the sound of an authentic Tiger owned by a collector in Los Angeles and edited it into the film.