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- 35
My Tiger story starts just after I graduated high school in '85. I was driving a '66 Pontiac LeMans; I had been working for a few months and decided to look for a different car. I had the muscle car experience - fast, no brakes or handling. My British car history was limited to driving and fixing my friend's '64 MGB and another friend's '66 big Healey. Instead of listing cars I could live with, I started listing attributes I wanted, then listed those attributes in order
of importance. I started looking in the local paper's classified section (I did mention that this was 1985), for cars that might fit the bill. In the paper one day I saw an ad for a Sunbeam Tiger. I knew very little about the car. I knew it was a V8, but I thought it was the Buick 231 aluminum motor. I decided to check it out that afternoon and meet the owner at the local small airport. The Tiger had a hitch installed and he was using it to tow his helicopter in and out of the hangar. After learning a little bit about the car and its history, and looking it over for rust and damage, everything looked good so we went for a test drive. I drove it very cautiously, then the owner drove back to the hangar with me as the passenger and said, "this is how you will drive it when you own it". Even with the 260 being a little tired, it was a great time and I bought the car the next day. Soon after purchasing the car I joined Cat. Some mods followed over the next few years - a 289, Capri wheels, and a Ron Davis radiator. But for the most part, it was reliable and my daily driver until the late '90's. A few years after I bought the first car, a friend found another one in a storage lot with a dozen different cars in need of restoration. There were a couple of '50's Alpines, a '67 big block Vette, an early OSCA, and a Lambo Espada, among other things. It was hit in the front and poorly repaired, but it was complete with no rust. I bought the second car and a decade later, I took it Dale's and had the front clip replaced and the rest of the body primed and prepped for paint. Today, the second car is still waiting its turn while I restore the first car, hopefully for the final time. When I bought the first car it was red with black interior, but I plan on returning it to its original color, Mediterranean blue. The second car was Embassy black with a red interior and I have no plans to change that. Both cars are MK1, the black car has the short shifter and traction master, the red car had the Motorola radio setup with the speaker box. I included a picture of the black car as I found it, one of it getting dropped off at my parents' house for storage, one after I picked it up from Dale's, and one of the red car before I started tearing it down.
of importance. I started looking in the local paper's classified section (I did mention that this was 1985), for cars that might fit the bill. In the paper one day I saw an ad for a Sunbeam Tiger. I knew very little about the car. I knew it was a V8, but I thought it was the Buick 231 aluminum motor. I decided to check it out that afternoon and meet the owner at the local small airport. The Tiger had a hitch installed and he was using it to tow his helicopter in and out of the hangar. After learning a little bit about the car and its history, and looking it over for rust and damage, everything looked good so we went for a test drive. I drove it very cautiously, then the owner drove back to the hangar with me as the passenger and said, "this is how you will drive it when you own it". Even with the 260 being a little tired, it was a great time and I bought the car the next day. Soon after purchasing the car I joined Cat. Some mods followed over the next few years - a 289, Capri wheels, and a Ron Davis radiator. But for the most part, it was reliable and my daily driver until the late '90's. A few years after I bought the first car, a friend found another one in a storage lot with a dozen different cars in need of restoration. There were a couple of '50's Alpines, a '67 big block Vette, an early OSCA, and a Lambo Espada, among other things. It was hit in the front and poorly repaired, but it was complete with no rust. I bought the second car and a decade later, I took it Dale's and had the front clip replaced and the rest of the body primed and prepped for paint. Today, the second car is still waiting its turn while I restore the first car, hopefully for the final time. When I bought the first car it was red with black interior, but I plan on returning it to its original color, Mediterranean blue. The second car was Embassy black with a red interior and I have no plans to change that. Both cars are MK1, the black car has the short shifter and traction master, the red car had the Motorola radio setup with the speaker box. I included a picture of the black car as I found it, one of it getting dropped off at my parents' house for storage, one after I picked it up from Dale's, and one of the red car before I started tearing it down.
