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When Ferrari passed on refurbishing the underpowered Sunbeam Alpine’s engine, Rootes Motors turned to Carroll Shelby, fresh off building the AC Cobra. What followed was a secretly funded Ford V8 swap, a surprised company owner, and an order so large it was the biggest Ford had ever received from another automaker. Read on to find out how the Sunbeam Tiger came together in eight months.
Rootes Motors built only 7,128 Sunbeam Tigers between three distinct variants, squeezing Ford V8s into a lightweight British roadster that went on to hold the AHRA quarter-mile record for two years. Most of the Tiger’s production crossed the Atlantic to North America, though six went to London’s Metropolitan Police for highway patrol duty. The car’s ending is as strange as its badge: Chrysler bought Rootes in 1964 but had no engine that would fit the Tiger, and production simply stopped once the Ford engine supply ran out. Read on for the full story of Detroit muscle in a British body.
The Sunbeam Tiger paired a modest British roadster body with an American Ford V8, a combination suggested by Formula One champion Jack Brabham and engineered with help from a young Carroll Shelby. Built in England, powered by Detroit, and cancelled the moment Chrysler bought a controlling stake in Rootes Group, the Tiger’s four-year production run tells one of the more unusual stories in 1960s performance cars. Read on to find out why so few Mark II examples exist today.