sunbeamtiger.co.uk

Seems to me that no one is against the reshelling of a nackerd Tiger body which is past the point of restoration. I think the car should carry the tigers vin AND another tag to say it is a rebody.

If it has to carry the Alpines Vin because that was the bodies original model, it should carry the Tigers VIN as well because that is where the mechanicals etc have come from.

Deception is the big fear with cars this old and becoming more valuble all the time. People should know what they are buying, then they can make the informed choice themselves.

A car built from an Alpine with bits and pieces from who knows what is a replica and not a Tiger.

Wow, I have read all the comments and both sides have valid points. I am most probably the newest Tiger owner on this Forum so my word may not hold much worth. If I have a series IV Alpine and it has been very badly damaged and I have found a good car without any running gear. I buy it and swap all the good parts from mine over. It takes a long time but the result is great. Oh buy the way, the car without the running gear had been repainted in the past and there were no id plates at all. So I swapped the old VIN plates to the replacement body. I have no problem with that. Oh, I did that 7 years ago and the car wins awards.

And the main reason I posted is ITS Getting very close to Xmas so everyone take a big breath and smile.

Red Race Tiger wrote:Tony, folklore has it that Jensen were supplied fully rolling and painted Alpine's minus engine/gearbox and top hats.

Upon the Jenson assy line both front and rear axles were stripped off to be shipped back to Coventry for Alpine production, them Jenson would start to hack the Alpine shell apart

OK, so the bodies used for Tigers at Jensen were simply just 'picked off' the Alpine production facility at Pressed Steel.

So does that tell me all Tigers were at some point Alpines, and that the only distinquishing feature is whether it was assembled/fabricated at Jensen or DIY at home?

Isn't that how a majority of production line special vehicles are built? Look at many of the major manufacturers, they take what would have been a normal everyday car, send it to their special vehicle section and transform it into a limited number special model. In my opinion if someone transferred the running gear out of that special vehicle into the body of standard car, it doesn't make it a special vehicle just a replica. By that it can't be called a special vehicle any more (in our case an Alger - with the Alpine numbers of course!).

Its clarified it for me, as I wasn't sure if Pressed Steel fabricated in Tiger related panels into the build of the body.

let's say that i converted a tiger back to an alpine. maybe i already have done this. as i have told many over the years my body man was going to restore my wife's alpine and when it came back in a bare metal state he told us we needed to find a better body since there were some hidden serious issues. i bought one in california a few weeks later and it became the donor car. this was in 1994. at a te/ae united a few years ago a tiger owner asked who did our body work on the alpine. i told him and he informed me that shop only worked on tigers. my response was that the only thing i could find was a rust free MK2 tiger so he converted it back to an alpine. we thought he was going to need CPR! the joke has continued right thru the united this year. my point is that rebodies of classic and collector cars is being done all the time here in the states. they can carry the original vin plates when done. we now have complete bodies available for 64 thru 66 mustang convertibles. these bodies are produced with the approval of ford. but it seems that some in this discussion would tell ford and the owners that they don't have a mustang, they have a clone. there are also approved complete bodies available for other muscle cars. so if rootes was still in business they would probably approve rebodies of tigers.if an owners ego is so big that he wouldn't want his original tiger parking with a rebody, then i believe that owner is only in it for the money and not a true lover of the marque.

I'm enjoying this....

WHAT IS A CAR? not such a stupid question. What constitutes A CAR?

Is it the body? if so what if say it's a Cobra that has a seperate chassis as well as a body??? What is the car? the engine, axles, gearbox?

If you had an original Cobra chassis and replaced the damaged body with an new Kirkham shell is it no longer a Cobra? NO because Shelby himself uses Kirkham Shells....he'll use anything to make a buck to be fare even carbon fibre bodies but we wont go there.

A GT350 Mustang reshelled with a 65/66 rust free fastback shell is STILL a GT350, A Sierra Cosworth reshelled is STILL a Sierra Cosworth, an RS 2000 with bodyshell converted to type 49 spec is STILL an RS 2000, as long as these cars use the same spec it's STILL what it was surely.

Another point here is that a CAR is made up of many part's, thousands of them in fact and a bodyshell is just another part, it has a part number just like an AIR FILTER or a SPARK PLUG, look in the ROOTES parts/service manual and you will see, it was a service item just like a front wing or a door.
My opinion is that Rootes never made service bodies for the Tiger? So even back in the day if a Tiger was writen off and you went down to your local Rootes dealership your only choice would have been an Alpine shell which you would have to have "Converted to Tiger spec mate"....and thats why in the service manual there's specific measurements on "How To" convert an Alpine inner wing to a Tiger with the dent for the dynamo.

My point here is that a CAR is it's documents only, period.

As these cars are now getting on for 50 years old nobody can say how original any given car maybe, they've all had a life long before most of us owned them except those that have had them from new....how many Cooper S mini's still are on there Original shell'? or Lotus Cortina's come to that.


Tony, one point that came to mind earlier with the Mk2, which i'm not really UP on to be honest but....the Alpine series 5 and Tiger 2 look visually identicle with their open seams, rounded headlamp ring's and squared edges? but lift up the rear cushion on a Tiger 2 and there's no cut out for the battery box in the floor as in the Alpine? so me thinks that proberbly by 67 there was indeed a dedicated Rootes/Pressed Steel Tiger shell by that time.

paul another point if you have a tiger with a smashed up backend and you stitch a rust free alpine back end . is that a tiger or an alpine

i think this thread will outlast our cars

ps tonys mk2 does have a lift up battery tray like the alpine poss as it was the last tiger body and they run out and used an alpine:mrgreen:

Gary,

As i'm stuck in the dark ages with my very early MK1 and black vynil dash i am not qualified to comment on Mk2's Sorry

I'm just a skint Plumber, i dont have that much money

A little off topic, but hey that's me. I talk too much and ramble on.

I enjoyed the AHP 295B story. I'd never heard it before.
I was sorry to hear about your Dad.
Did he eventually make a good recovery?

What happened to the ringer in the end? ( I looked on Rootes 1 but couldn't find it)
What became of the 2 bad guys?

garyv8tiger wrote:ps tonys mk2 does have a lift up battery tray like the alpine poss as it was the last tiger body and they run out and used an alpine:mrgreen:

Does that explain why I've got a Holbay prototype engine with twin webbers in it also

Red Race Tiger wrote:Gary,

As i'm stuck in the dark ages with my very early MK1 and black vynil dash i am not qualified to comment on Mk2's Sorry

I'm just a skint Plumber, i dont have that much money

i had loads when i had an alpine .then i found tigers.mk 2s are iteresting tho and ive never met a skint plumber

Martin,

Me and Graham ( Nudge Nudge Graham) are gonna sit down one day soon and write the story of Malcolm Sears and his time with AHP 295B....arnt we Graham?

Yes a little of topic and hope we wont get bumped off.

No, Dad never fully recovered i'm affraid, head truma's never funny and he paid a high price for being a racing driver. Thankfully circuits and motor racing generally are much safer these days.

The builder "Moved On" to different pastures and the Bank Roller burn't in hell in believe

Anyway lets keep to the thread in Question shall we?

65beam wrote:let's say that i converted a tiger back to an alpine. maybe i already have done this. as i have told many over the years my body man was going to restore my wife's alpine and when it came back in a bare metal state he told us we needed to find a better body since there were some hidden serious issues. i bought one in california a few weeks later and it became the donor car. this was in 1994. at a te/ae united a few years ago a tiger owner asked who did our body work on the alpine. i told him and he informed me that shop only worked on tigers. my response was that the only thing i could find was a rust free MK2 tiger so he converted it back to an alpine. we thought he was going to need CPR! the joke has continued right thru the united this year. my point is that rebodies of classic and collector cars is being done all the time here in the states. they can carry the original vin plates when done. we now have complete bodies available for 64 thru 66 mustang convertibles. these bodies are produced with the approval of ford. but it seems that some in this discussion would tell ford and the owners that they don't have a mustang, they have a clone. there are also approved complete bodies available for other muscle cars. so if rootes was still in business they would probably approve rebodies of tigers.if an owners ego is so big that he wouldn't want his original tiger parking with a rebody, then i believe that owner is only in it for the money and not a true lover of the marque.

If only there were official remanufactured bodies. As already stated, there are a number of remanufactured bodies available, just not for Sunbeams. If the bodies were from original tooling, I would have no issues with that. Anything to save our marque and at least it wasn't taken from an Alpine.

What nonsense cant get more original than an alpine