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WANNA SHOW YOUR RIDE?
This is the place to do it! Expose your efforts! Please describe your car and all the mods you’ve done to it to make it your SPECIAL RIDE!! Please also submit nice pics of your car, and we will show these on our site.
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Recycling an Alpine
Sunbeam Alpine
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26-5-2005 - by Bob Rice
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Being a big fan of the show "Get Smart" I was interested in the Sunbeam cars at an early age. My brother bought a series 2 Alpine for his first car in 1966. We went for many a pleasant trip on winding roads.
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We both dreamed of owing a Tiger someday. Later he bought a TR 4 and I got a 68 Austin Healy Sprite. Lots of fun driving the car to school or pushing it in the winter time. We were so used to pushing the cars, I recall one day I pushed his TR4 down four alleys while he tried to jump start the car, only to find out the gas tank was empty. As time went on, I owned a variety of cars including a Lancia and a TR4 and then I went American for a while.
After the children got their own cars, I noticed they weren't around much anymore, so I figured I'd better find a good hobby to keep me busy. I found a 55 T-Bird and spent 2 years restoring it to original. That was a big mistake. A 55 T-Bird looked fantastic, but drove like a truck. I wanted a sports car. SO eventually I sold the T-Bird (that was like losing the family pet).
With the modest profit, I found a real nice Tiger in great shape. I take it to shows, but I was afraid my desire to work on the car was going to make me break something. After all, I repainted the entire car because it had a scratch on one fender. So what was I supposed to do? Yes, of course, I needed a Sunbeam Alpine. The perfect project. They sell fairly cheap, and are easy to restore.
So I found one in Huntsville, AL that had been completely disassembled and stored in boxes for almost 20 years. A pickup and trailer for parts got it to my house, and now I'm in the process of putting her back together. Let me tell you for sure, the only way I'd ever get this together is with a great deal of help from club members (especially Jim Ellis). So I got my brother in Maryland to buy a parts car and he sends me parts every week.
 
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