1969 Sunbeam. A Chrysler product.

72Fury

72Fury

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1969 Sunbeam Alpine GT - $2800 (Jefferson City, MO) hide this posting
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1969 Sunbeam Alpine GT

condition: good
cylinders: 4 cylinders
drive: rwd
fuel: gas
odometer: 64000
paint color: white
size: compact
title status: clean
transmission: manual
type: coupe

safety tips


Selling my 1970 Sunbeam Alpine GT. AKA: Baby Cuda. Quite rare with only about 10,000 sold in the US in 1969/70.
This is a California car last registered in 1977. It has 65,000 miles. ALL original! 1725 4cyl $ sp manual. Starts and runs good, Tranny shifts smooth. Head & turn lights not working (have parts). This car has NO rust issues!! New tires. Carpets are bagged up and in the trunk so not to get wet. Roots Group-UK Chrysler $2,800.00

Cool British car...... Austin Morris Minor Triumph MG Lotus Jaguar
 
I kinda like that... Probably it's good that it's the other side of the country...

I could just see myself pulling up to the local Mopar show with it... And having them scratch their head.

BTW, interesting bit of Sunbeam trivia... as a lot of you know, the Sunbeam Tiger was powered by a 260 Ford engine... Chrysler bought Roots in 1967 and they were still making the Tiger, so they were actually selling Ford powered cars for a short time. The "powered by Ford" badge went away though..
 
Big_John said:
I kinda like that... Probably it's good that it's the other side of the country...

I could just see myself pulling up to the local Mopar show with it... And having them scratch their head.

BTW, interesting bit of Sunbeam trivia... as a lot of you know, the Sunbeam Tiger was powered by a 260 Ford engine... Chrysler bought Roots in 1967 and they were still making the Tiger, so they were actually selling Ford powered cars for a short time. The "powered by Ford" badge went away though..
Click to expand...

Supposedly efforts were made to install a 273. Either it simply didn't fit, or nobody could justify the cost.

Neat car from the days when we had an empire. :(
 
The rear end is very reminiscent of the 64 barracuda wouldn't you say?

All in all very cool looking car and not a bad price. Like big John said... Good thing it's on the other side of the country.
 
A buddy of mine brought his Sunbeam Tiger to a Mopar show at a Chrysler Dodge Jeep dealership in Martinsburg, West Virginia a couple weeks ago. He had to school them on the connection between Rootes Group and Chrysler to get in. The car did indeed have alot of people scratching their heads.
For those that can view them on Facebook, heres a link to photos I took at the show. 2016 Miller Chrysler Dodge show | Facebook
14344062_1115187538528295_7748014593304515775_n.jpg
Tiger wv.jpg
 
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[QUOTE="Carmine, efforts were made to install a 273. Either it simply didn't fit, or nobody could justify the cost. [/QUOTE]

The issue was the location of the distributor in the engines. The 273 distributor was in the rear of the engine and there was no way that would fit in the Sunbeam body.

images
 
From Wiki.
Chrysler Europe[edit]
But at this point, Rootes was in financial trouble. Talks with Leyland Motors went nowhere, so in 1964, 30 percent of the company (along with 50 percent of the non-voting shares) was purchased by Chrysler, who was attempting to enter the European market. Ironically, Chrysler had purchased Simca the year earlier, who had earlier purchased Automobiles Talbot, originally the British brand that had been merged into STD Motors many years earlier.


Sunbeam Rapier fastback coupé
Chrysler's experience with the Rootes empire appears to have been an unhappy one. Models were abandoned over the next few years while they tried to build a single brand from the best models of each of the company's components, but for management, "best" typically meant "cheapest to produce," which was at odds with the former higher-quality Rootes philosophy. Brand loyalty started to erode, and was greatly damaged when they decided to drop former marques and start calling everything a Chrysler. The Tiger was dropped in 1967 after an abortive attempt to fit it with a Chrysler engine, and the Hillman Imp–derived Stiletto disappeared in 1972.

The last Sunbeam produced was the "Rootes Arrow" series Alpine/Rapier fastback (1967–76), after which Chrysler, who had purchased Rootes, disbanded the marque. The Hillman (by now Chrysler) Hunter, on which they were based, soldiered on until 1978. A Hillman Avenger-derived hatchback, the Chrysler Sunbeam, maintained the name as a model, rather than a marque, from 1978 to the early 1980s, with the very last models sold as Talbot Sunbeams. The remains of Chrysler Europe were purchased by Peugeot and Renault in 1978, and the name has not been used since.
 
No power vents, pass. Although in this car I could reach every piece of glass in the car from the driver's seat...
 
bluefury361 said:
[QUOTE="Carmine, efforts were made to install a 273. Either it simply didn't fit, or nobody could justify the cost.
Click to expand...

The issue was the location of the distributor in the engines. The 273 distributor was in the rear of the engine and there was no way that would fit in the Sunbeam body.

images
[/QUOTE]

Makes sense, although by the 90s most manufacturers realized you could bury 50% of the engine under the cowl and people would still buy them, lol.
 
I learned to drive a stick in a 69 Sunbeam Alpine GT. Ours was maroon with black interior. Dad picked it out of the engineering pool as the 70 Simca 1204 he ordered was way behind build schedule. The GT had twin carbs and nice shifting trans. That flat solid wood dash was gorgeous when new. And yeah, it had the little pentastar in lower right fender!
Way more fun to drive than my brothers beetle.
 
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We have plenty of those sunbeams in NZ, I always think of hemi under glass for some reason - then have a chuckle.
 
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