1965 Sunbeam Tiger

This was one of the competitors in the AMOC  '50s Sports Car race at the Aston Martin Owners Club's meeting at Oulton Park in May 2017.

It's the 1965 Sunbeam Tiger of William Smallridge, pictured here in the pit garage before the start of the day's racing.

The Sunbeam Tiger is a high-performance version of the British Rootes Group's Sunbeam Alpine roadster, designed with the help of American car designer and racing driver Carroll Shelby and originally with a 260 cu in (4.3 litre) Ford V8 engine. The series II car was fitted with the larger Ford 289 cu in (4.7 L) engine, but the programme of the events says that this car has a 5 litre engine.

 

The car is seen here at Druids Corner during the morning qualifying session.....

.....and here at Knickerbrook during the afternoon's race.

1925 Sunbeam Tiger

I took this photograph during the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophy Race for Vintage Racing Cars at the VSCC's meeting at Oulton Park in June 1993.

It's Vijay Mallya coming up to Lodge Corner in his 1925 Sunbeam Tiger, and behind him David Biggins in the 1926/23 Vauxhall 14/40 Rowley Special with a 30/98 engine. The Sunbeam Tiger has a supercharged 3,976cc V12 engine formed from two of the Grand Prix Sunbeam's 6-cylinder 2 litre engines in a V formation mated to a single crankshaft and a note in the programme of the event about the car reads as follows:

'The most powerful car in today's race is the 4 litre supercharged V12 Sunbeam Tiger of Vijay Mallya, another favourite for a win, though a first appearance at Oulton Park, we think, for Vijay himself. The Sunbeam took the Land Speed Record on Southport sands at 152.33 mph in 1926 driven by Seagrave and broke the Brooklands Outer Circuit record in 1929 at 137.58 mph driven by Kaye Don. Seagrave also led the free formula Spanish GP at San Sebastian with the car for four laps later in 1926 after which the tubular front axle broke in the middle due to inaccurate boring-out and Seagrave slid to a rather uncomfortable halt. The car has twice been a winner of the Vintage Seaman Trophy at Oulton Park when entered by Sir Ralph Millais and driven by George Burton in 1965 and by Neil Corner in 1970.'

Sunbeam

Here are two Sunbeams that took part in the AMOC Lighthouse Anglo-American Thoroughbred Challenge race at the Aston Martin Owners Club's race meeting at Oulton Park in May 2002.

This is Christopher Draycott's 1725cc 1965 Sunbeam Alpine Series 5. I've not featured the Series 5 car before, but I showed a photograph of the Sunbeam Alpine Mk1 Alpine Rally Works Team cars on 25 August 2016. There is a Sunbeam Alpine Owners Club for owners of the car.

This car is Chris Beighton's 4940cc 1965 Sunbeam Tiger, so it should be a Mark I with a 4.3 litre engine. I showed a photograph of another Sunbeam Tiger on 15 December 2014 when I pointed out that the Wikipedia article said that there were few surviving cars in standard form. As with the Sunbeam Alpine, there is also a Sunbeam Tiger Owners Club.

Sunbeam Tiger

The Autumn Historic Car Races organised by the Aston Martin Owners Club took place at Oulton Park in September 1993 and included a race which is shown in the programme of the event as the 'MG Car Club/AMOC Thoroughbred & Classic Sports Car Championship Race'. One of the cars that took part in that race was this Sunbeam Tiger.

Wikipedia says this about the Sunbeam Tiger:

'The Sunbeam Tiger is a high-performance V8 version of the British Rootes Group's Sunbeam Alpine roadster, designed in part by American car designer and racing driver Carroll Shelby and produced from 1964 until 1967. Shelby had carried out a similar V8 conversion on the AC Cobra, and hoped to be offered the contract to produce the Tiger at his facility in America. 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 (1964–67) was fitted with the 260 cu in (4.3 L) Ford V8; the Series II, of which only 633 were built in the final year of Tiger production, was fitted with the larger Ford 289 cu in (4.7 L) engine. Two prototype and 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, and for two years it was the American Hot Rod Association's national record holder over a quarter-mile drag strip.

Production ended in 1967 soon after the Rootes Group was taken over by Chrysler, which did not have a suitable engine to replace the Ford V8. Owing to the ease and affordability of modifying the Tiger, there are few surviving cars in standard form.'

The race programme says that it's a 1964 car which means that it's a Series I car, but it shows the engine capacity as 4727cc which seems to indicate that it's got the 289 cu in engine which was fitted to the Series II car and confirms the last sentence of the Wikipedia article that 'there are few surviving cars in standard form'.