In other words these guys had no idea of why. The styling of the Sunbeams
and the Tigers was first rate. I think that it had to do more with the name
Sunbeam which was of course also a mixmaster as we have all heard a thousand
times. Once right after I just finished my Alpine with a 302 and automatic
I took it to a dinner at a posh restaurant-country club for my companies
Christmas dinner. When the place closed late, everyone left at the same
time and there was more than one party leaving. As the valet brought my
Alger up from the parking lot everyone could hear the engine rumbling. I
hadn't put any of the letters or chrome on the car so no one could read the
name of it anywhere. I was in the back of the line when it came up and some
young hottie from a different group said to her sugar daddy," My, what kind
of car is that." He not wanting to appear as dumb as he knew he was, said,
"That's an old Ferrari and it is probably worth a quarter million dollars."
People asked me for years if I still had my Ferrari. This was about 1980 so
a quarter of a million for any auto at that time was phenomenal but the
bottom line is that were it not for superior styling the old goat's response
would have been, "Who cares". Instead it looked like a quarter million
worth of styling to him. At the time I had only $1700 in the whole vehicle
plus a ton of hours of course. Probably about a 1/4 mil worth. Anybody
want to see a pic of the 1/4 mil car let me know. ----Bill ----
Subject: Re: [Tigers] Tiger Magazine Article
Just an FYI
This month's issue of Keith Martin's Sports Car Market auction magazine has
a two page article on the Sunbeam Tiger titled "Sunbeam's Snakebit Tiger."
The article asks the question of why the Tiger's value is so low
comparatively to?other Shelby-related autos and collectible classics and why
it suffers from the Rodney Dangerfield syndrome. They asked a group of
self-proclaimed "gearheads" and they all agreed it?was "because of the
styling." They also mention that Algers reduce the valueThe article goes on
tot state that a buyer can still find a very nice Tiger for under $50K.
The MK1 Tiger they chose to picture?in the article is missing its
front-to-rear side trim. Further disrespect, I suppose. On newsstands now
for your reading pleasure.
Rodney
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