Sunbeam
Like so many British car makes, Sunbeam evolved from cycle manufacture and built their first self propelled vehicle in 1899. The company produced excellent quality conventional vehicles, and was heavily involved in aircraft engine manufacture during the 1914 -18 war, and built many race cars over a long period. Their road car 3 litre twin cam of 1926 was the pinnacle of anything the public could be offered at the time. Looking post the first world war, the Sunbeam had been merged with Darracq and Talbot in the 1920's, which became part of the Rootes Group in 1935, but let's look to the post war era.
The Sunbeam-Talbot had a place in austere post war Britain with their Ten and Two litre models. With new bodywork penned by Ted White, the 80 with the 90, with independent suspension coming in 1950 when the smaller engined car was deleted. By 1953 the name Talbot was deleted so the cars were just "Sunbeam"to make things less confusing. By 1960 a new Alpine was produced, which later (1964 to 1967) had a Ford V8 installed which was called the Tiger. There was a little badge engineering also going on with a Hillman Minx variant being the Sunbeam Rapier introduced in 1955, while the Hillman Imp had a Sunbeam Imp too, also with a fastback version the Sunbeam Stiletto and Chamois, while there was also a Sunbeam Hunter in the Chrysler armoury.
