Blimey, thought i was starting this thread? looks like iv'e been Hi Jacked.....
I shall try to keep this post as short as i can but for reasons that will become obvious i may ramble, so sorry in advance.
For those who do not know of my background my father Malcolm Sears owned and raced with some success AHP 295B, an ex works Sunbeam Tiger which after Rootes had ceased rallying the Tiger's sold them off to whoever wanted them.
295B was sold the Mr Mike Coombe (Mike was an Rootes competition mechanic) who modified the car to a fast road spec and raced it during 67/68 as such.
In 1969 the car was purchased by my father who further went on to develop it into one of the fastest modified sports cars in the county.
Unfortunately at Oulton Park in September 1971 my father left the circuit at Old Hall and had an accident that would change his life from that day forward.
As a result of that accident he sustained terrible injuries and head truma, he would spend the next nine years in hospital until 1980
Stick with me here.....
On impact the Tiger burst into flames, being LHD and Old Hall being a RH bend he took the full force of the impact as the engine and gearbox slammed back into the cockpit. The car was completely destroyed, what was left of AHP 295B was just a rusting unrecognisable race car and was taken to the bone yard as scrap. End of AHP 295B......or so you would have thought.
Without going into to much personal detail the only thing that remained of 295 was the old original green log book that my father still held onto as a keep sake, as a result of head truma he suffered from memory loss.....and he was coned out of that log book as so begun the nasty spiteful "Ringing" of my fathers ex works rally car.
He suffered badly from that accident that almost claimed his life and i was dammed if i was ever going to see ANYONE benifit from his misfortune, and so started the long fight against the "Ringers"
No names mentioned here as they know who they are, the person who built the "Ringer" and the other who bank rolled it. Shame on you both.
I owe a great deal of gratitude to STOC for there support back in 1994 and especially to Norman Miller who is the voice of the Sunbeam Tiger. You can see the saga of AHP 295B on his website in the ALGER alley.....
The final nail in this AIR cars coffin came in 2008 when Doug Nye wrote an article on my father and 295 in "MOTORSPORT" detailing the car's demise. The game was finally up and my struggle to end the farce was at an end.
Still awake??
My facination with the Sunbeam Tiger obviously goes back to those times as a child watching my father race his ex works car and it has clearly stayed with me ever sinse....
To the topic then.
As we all know the Sunbeam Tiger derived directly from the Alpine, no denial there i hope, no Alpine....no Tiger
Both cars share a very basic and easily changeable identifier in the chassis plaque and jal/sal number held on with two rivets and two screws.
Once Rootes gave the go ahead for the Thunderbolt project to Jensen the Tiger as we all know it was born, these cars were built in very low volume's and to a price, you only have to look at the shody coversion welding to the top hats and bulkhead/tunnel to realise that, it was a 60's shoehorn job for sure.
Today Tigers are on the UP price wise which is super for the marque we'd all agree i'm sure. except for those who own an "ALGER" rebody, re-shell, ringer or what ever name you care to hang on it.
Top hat without doubt top line Mk2 Tigers are now out of reach of the common working man, who has 50-60K laying around?? so maybe the only way into enjoying these cars is a re-body etc. we all know they are out there so why not now embrace them? and bring them in from the outside?
It wont affect the prices of the Top Line cars at all, it may even push their prices up even further but personaly i dont see that giving such cars a Status such as "Re Shelled" "Rebodied" other than ALGER which suggest's back street bodge up could do any harm.
In the U S they have the TAC inspection which is great if you live in the sun, we live in a pond most of the time and things rust away so why could there not be something similar along the lines of "Declare as a Reshell" and providing it carries ALL of the Tiger identifiers ie Chassis, Jal, Axle and Gearbox numbers and has been done to the highest standards and contain's 100% of what a Tiger would and should have the car would be assigned as being "Reshelled" to specified Standard? No more, no less.
I'm not talking about an Alpine with a 302, Autobox and an axle from a Buick built in Jim's back yard, that is an Alpine V8 thingy clearly.
I'm talking about a topline conversion done properly and in most cases better than Jenson ever did in the day.
It really seams double standards to me that if we owned MGB's we could trot off to heritege and come home with a new shell and build a new MGB, if a Tiger owner does that with a rust free Alpine and does the same thing it's an Alger?
The car gets saved.
Provided there isn't clear deceipt and "ringing" which clearly is against the law is it wrong to save one of these quirky cars? The expense and man hours involved far outways the value i would have thought.
I'm really sorry for rambling on, from a Tiger fan