A Formula One champion’s suggestion in 1962 led to one of the more unusual collaborations in sports car history: British styling, American Ford V8 power, and assembly work handled by a completely separate English company. The Sunbeam Tiger’s Mark I could hit 60 mph in 8.6 seconds, while the rarer 1967 Mark II – only 633 built – improved on that with a larger V8. These photos capture the model at its mid-1960s peak.
The Sunbeam Tiger was partly designed by Carol Shelby working with the Rootes Group and their British Designed Sunbeam Alpine Roadster. The image is a Mark I version made from 1964 through to 1967. Under the hood of the Tiger is an an American Ford designed 260 cu in (4.3 L) V8 coupled to a Ford manufactured 4 speed manual transmission.
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It took a Formula One world champion to convince a British sports car company that its dainty four-cylinder roadster needed an American V8 crammed under the hood. Jack Brabham made that pitch to Rootes Group’s competition manager back in 1962, and rather than handle the engineering in-house, Rootes outsourced the entire job — paying a young Carroll Shelby a royalty on every car built. The resulting Sunbeam Tiger looked nearly identical to the four-cylinder Alpine it was based on, which made its performance numbers all the more surprising to unsuspecting rivals. Assembly itself happened an ocean away from Shelby’s California shop, in a corner of England most muscle car fans have never heard of. So how did a car built by three different companies on two continents end up this fast?
An Assembly Line Nobody Expected
Rather than build the Tiger themselves, Rootes contracted the actual assembly work to Jensen Motors in West Bromwich, England, creating an unusual arrangement where a British-badged car combined American Ford power with British Rootes styling and Jensen craftsmanship, all coordinated from Shelby’s operation on the other side of the Atlantic. The Mark I, produced from 1964 to 1967, used Ford’s 260-cubic-inch V8 rated at 164 horsepower, enough to push the 2,652-pound roadster from 0 to 60 mph in 8.6 seconds and on to a 120-mph top speed — genuinely quick numbers for a car that still looked like a British roadster from the outside.
The Rare Version Almost Nobody Remembers
Production shifted in 1967 to the Mark II, which swapped in Ford’s larger 289-cubic-inch V8 for 200 horsepower, trimming the 0-to-60 sprint to 7.5 seconds and pushing top speed to 122 mph — a meaningful upgrade in the Tiger’s final year on sale. Only 633 Mark II examples were built before production ended, compared to 6,495 Mark I cars across the model’s earlier run, making the later, more powerful version significantly scarcer despite offering the best performance the Tiger ever had.
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