SUNBEAM

Tiger

The Sunbeam Tiger is a high-performance Anglo-American sports roadster produced by the Rootes Group between 1964 and 1967, born from the inspired idea of fitting a Ford V8 engine into the lightweight body of the Sunbeam Alpine. The project originated with Rootes West Coast distributor Ian Garrad, who engaged racing driver and engineer Carroll Shelby to build a prototype in 1963. Shelby, fresh from his triumph with the AC Cobra, demonstrated that a Ford 260 cu in (4.3 L) V8 could be shoehorned into the Alpine shell with little modification to the firewall and front structure. Rootes approved production but awarded the assembly contract to Jensen Motors of West Bromwich rather than Shelby's workshop, paying Shelby a royalty on every Sunbeam Tiger built. The Mark I Sunbeam Tiger went on sale in the United States in April 1964 at US$3,499, using Series IV Alpine body panels with their characteristic rounded corners and lead-filled seams. A Mark IA followed with the cleaner Series V square-edged panels. When Chrysler acquired a controlling stake in Rootes in 1967 it immediately ordered an end to a car powered by a Ford engine; Jensen assembled the final Sunbeam Tiger on 27 June 1967 as the last of the factory's Ford 289 cu in V8 supplies ran out. Of the 7,128 Sunbeam Tigers built in total, 6,495 were Mark I and Mark IA examples and just 633 carried the larger-displacement Ford 289 Mark II specification. Every Sunbeam Tiger is documented in the Shelby American World Registry. The model now averages US$57,489 on the classic car market, with exceptional Mark II examples exceeding US$100,000 and the record standing at US$179,200 for a 1967 Mark IA sold in March 2022, cementing the Sunbeam Tiger's reputation as a rare and highly collectible 1960s sports car.