Sunbeam: The Tale of Two Golden Ages

The story of Sunbeam is a frustrating tale of two brilliant, glorious, and entirely separate golden ages, which were unfortunately connected by a long, dull period of quiet mediocrity. In its first life, before the First World War, Sunbeam was a titan, a builder of some of the fastest and most powerful racing cars on Earth, a company that held the Land Speed Record and won Grand Prix races. Then it all went wrong. For decades, the name was reduced to little more than a badge. And then, in the 1960s, it enjoyed a spectacular, if brief, second coming, creating one of the most beloved and brutish sports cars of the era. It’s a story of a great name, twice glorious, and twice extinguished.

The company was founded in Wolverhampton at the turn of the 20th century by a man named John Marston, who had made his fortune making high-quality black-lacquered, or "japanned," tin goods. His cars, from the very beginning, were magnificent, over-engineered machines. But the company's heroic era truly began with the arrival of a flamboyant and brilliant French engineer named Louis Coatalen in 1909. Coatalen was a genius, and he was obsessed with motorsport. He turned Sunbeam into a racing powerhouse.

The Land Speed Record Breakers

Under Coatalen's guidance, Sunbeam became a name feared on every racetrack in the world. They built a series of monstrous, aero-engined cars specifically to capture the Land Speed Record. In 1922, Kenelm Lee Guinness took a 350hp Sunbeam to 133 mph on the banking at Brooklands. In 1924, Malcolm Campbell used a Sunbeam to set a new record of 146 mph. And in 1925, Campbell, in another Sunbeam, became the first man to exceed 150 mph.

This wasn't just about straight-line speed. Sunbeam was a dominant force in Grand Prix racing, winning the French Grand Prix back-to-back in the early 1920s. For a glorious decade, a Sunbeam from the industrial heart of Wolverhampton was one of the fastest and most respected racing cars in the world. But this focus on hugely expensive, headline-grabbing motorsport, combined with the financial chaos of the Great Depression, crippled the company. By the mid-1930s, the original, heroic Sunbeam was bankrupt.

The Rootes Group and a Quiet Sleep

The remains of the company were bought in 1935 by the Rootes Group, a vast and successful conglomerate that also owned Hillman, Humber, and Singer. For the next two decades, the Sunbeam name entered a long and quiet hibernation. It was merged with the French brand Talbot and used to create the Sunbeam-Talbot badge, which was stuck on the front of a series of respectable but largely unexciting saloon cars. The fire-breathing, record-breaking giant of the 1920s had been put to sleep.

Then, in the 1950s, the first glimmer of a comeback appeared. The Sunbeam Alpine, a handsome, two-seater roadster, was launched. It was a stylish and pleasant car, famously driven by Grace Kelly in the Alfred Hitchcock film To Catch a Thief. It was a good car, but it wasn't a great one. It lacked the raw power and excitement of its rivals from Triumph and MG. Sunbeam needed a proper hero car to announce its return.

The Tiger in the Tank

That hero arrived in 1964, and it was a monster. The Rootes Group, inspired by the success of the AC Cobra, decided to try the same recipe. They took their pretty little Alpine sports car and, with the help of Carroll Shelby himself, they somehow managed to shoehorn a big, American Ford V8 engine under its bonnet. The result was the Sunbeam Tiger.

The Tiger was an absolute hooligan, a brutish, tail-happy, and fantastically exciting hot rod. It was a muscle car in a tailored British suit. It had the performance to take on a Jaguar E-Type, but it was cheaper, simpler, and had a glorious, thumping V8 soundtrack. For a few years, the Tiger was one of the most exciting and desirable sports cars on the road, a magnificent return to the high-performance ethos of the original Sunbeam. The second golden age had begun.

Killed by the Accountants (Again)

And then, history repeated itself. The Rootes Group, like so many British car makers, ran into financial trouble and was taken over by the American giant, Chrysler, in 1967. The new bosses from Detroit took one look at the Sunbeam Tiger and were horrified. Here was a car, made by their new British subsidiary, that was powered by an engine from their arch-rival, Ford. It was a corporate embarrassment. One of the very first decisions they made was to kill the Tiger. The fact that it was the company's most exciting and desirable car was irrelevant.

The Sunbeam name was kept alive for a few more years, but it was a sad end. It was stuck on the boot lid of a fastback version of the Hillman Imp, and then, in a final, slightly cynical act, it was used on a little hatchback called the Sunbeam Lotus, a brilliant, rally-winning car that was really more of a Lotus than a Sunbeam. By 1981, the name was retired for good. The second golden age was over, killed, once again, by a corporate takeover.

The story of Sunbeam is one of the most frustrating in British motoring. It's the tale of a brand that, when it was good, was absolutely magnificent, a world-beater on the racetrack and the creator of one of the all-time great muscle cars. But it was a name that was twice brought to its knees by financial mismanagement and corporate politics. It was a shooting star that burned brilliantly, twice, before fizzling out for good.