Photos courtesy Bonhams.com.
In 1964, a sleek Kamm-tailed fastback coupe, based upon a British roadster infused with American V-8 power by Carroll Shelby, made its debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. One might assume the car referenced is the Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, but the same sentence holds true for its lesser-known British second cousin, the Sunbeam Tiger Le Mans Coupe. Three were built to promote sales of the Sunbeam Tiger roadster with racing glory, and on December 6 the prototype car, carrying registration 7734 KV, heads to auction at Bonhams Bond Street Sale in London, England.
The success of Carroll Shelby’s Cobra, itself based on the AC Ace roadster, did not escape rival British automaker Rootes Group. Looking to spice up the company’s four-cylinder Sunbeam Alpine, Rootes American Motors, Inc. asked Shelby to work his magic with the car, and the affable Texan found a way to stuff a 260-cu.in. Ford V-8 between the Alpine’s front fenders. The resulting product was to be called the Thunderbolt, at least until engine supplier Ford objected (since Thunderbolt was Ford’s name for its factory lightweight Fairlane), so Sunbeam opted for the Tiger moniker instead, recalling its 1925 Land Speed Record car.
To market the new Sunbeam Tiger roadster, the Rootes Group opted to create a racing variant to compete in the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans. The car’s fastback coupe styling was penned by Rootes stylist Ron Wisdom, and the task of producing the aluminum bodies was given to coachbuilder Williams & Pritchard. Brian Lister was entrusted with assembling and preparing the cars, which relied upon a steel monocoque for added strength and flex resistance.
Registration 7734 KV had already served as a development prototype for the Sunbeam Tiger roadster, so the car was the first supplied to Lister for conversion into a racing coupe. It’s initial on-track test was conducted in April of 1964 at Mallory Park, just days before the car was due to be shipped to France for its first test at Le Mans test. The feedback from driver Keith Ballisat showed that the test mule’s suspension settings weren’t close to being correct, but there was no time for major changes before the car was sent to Le Mans.
There, further shortcoming were soon detected, including overheating brakes and an oil starvation issue in low speed corners. Mike Parkes, a former Rootes employee then under contract as a Scuderia Ferrari driver, took a few laps in 7734 KV and provided his own feedback on the car and its setup. By the time the initial Le Mans testing was complete, the Rootes Group team had gathered enough data to finish construction of the two cars that would be run at Le Mans in June.
In racing trim, the Shelby 260 V-8 produced 275 horsepower, thanks in part to the use of a hotter camshaft and an aluminum manifold pulled from the Cobra and topped with a pair of Carter AFB carburetors. More power was theoretically available, but the Rootes Group opted to remain conservative, assuming an under-stressed (or at least not over-stressed) engine would deliver greater reliability. During the initial Le Mans test, 7734 KV proved capable of exceeding 160 MPH on the Mulsanne Straight, a speed deemed fast enough to be competitive as long as the cars proved to be reliable.
The two Tiger coupes entered in the race were registration ADU 179B, driven by Claude Dubois and Keith Ballisat, which carried number 8, while registration ADU 180B, driven by Peter Proctor and Jimmy Blumer, carried number 9. The first to retire, just three hour’s into the race’s 24, was car number 8, which experienced a broken piston. Six hours later, car number 9 expired with a broken crankshaft, and the Tiger coupe’s first and only appearance at Le Mans ended in disappointment for the Rootes Group team.
Following the conclusion of the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans, 7734 KV was adopted by Ian Hall, the deputy head of Rootes Group’s Competition Department. Hall raced the car for the remainder of the 1964 season, and in early 1965 it was sold into private ownership, as were the other two Tiger coupes. Remarkably, all would appear on track at a Brands Hatch race in 1965, the first and only time the three cars were run together in competition.
By then, owner Alan Eccles (or his son Roger) had swapped the 260 V-8 for a 289 V-8, which would remain with the car for several decades. Though the car changed hands numerous times in the 1960s, it continued to be raced extensively by subsequent owners, perhaps a testament to the efforts of the Rootes Group to build a stout racing car in a minimal amount of time. Circa 1970, the car was restored in the UK for the first time, by its London-dwelling American owner, and in 1973, it was acquired by U.S. Sunbeam Tiger collector Dick Barker, who would own the car for the next three decades.
Under Barker’s care, 7734 KV was restored to as-tested at Le Mans condition, and the later 289 V-8 was replaced by a period correct 260 V-8. Since re-emerging in 1997, the Tiger coupe has been shown worldwide at “Tigers United” (where it was again joined on display by the two Le Mans-raced Tiger coupes), at the Gaydon Motor Museum and, recently, at Road America’s Vintage Race Car Concours d’Elegance, where the Sunbeam captured Best in Class and Best in Show honors. It’s seen track time since its recent restoration as well, appearing at the Goodwood Revival, the Spa 6 Hours, the Le Mans Classic and the Monterey Historics.
Given the car’s condition and well-documented place in racing history, Bonhams is predicting a selling price between £300,000 – 400,000 ($460,000 – 610,000) when the Sunbeam Tiger Le Mans coupe crosses the block in London on December 6. For further information on The Bond Street Sale, visit Bonhams.com.
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