Page One: Meet Alphie!
I recently bought Alphie, a 1965 Sunbeam Alpine Series IV-A who has provided affordable housing for an extensive rodent population for about 20+ years as she moldered in her corner of a barn. I have come, like Cinderella’s prince to roust her from her slumber and return her to glory and radiance, but she’s gonna need more than a fairy Godmother!
For the next
who-knows-the-hell-how-long, this blog will follow her return to grace.
Fair warning: I plan to throw in as many Britishisms as possible because
it’s fun and a bit annoying.
My Goals
Frame-Off Restoration: OK, Alpines don’t have a frame, but Alphie will have to strip down to her naughties because she has rust in her boot and
bonnet. Lots of welding and fabricating practice!
Metal Work: The plan is to use as little plastic filler as possible.
I have hammers and dollies, and I’m going to learn how to use them!
She’s going on a rotisserie so I can get to her bum, and I foresee some
patch panels in her future. BUT, anything I can massage back to straight,
I will, and when I use plastic filler (it’s inevitable) I hope that it will be
no more than about a 1/16th of an inch thick.
Embassy Black: She came into this world wearing black, she likes black,
and she’s staying black. (Black interior too.)
Restore vs. Modify vs. Restomod: I watch a lot of car wrenching shows, and I
get the fun in modifying a car, making it better, faster, smarter and able to
leap tall buildings in a single bound - giving an old school car, modern guts.
I’m seeking a different challenge – besides I don’t have the cash for a
G-mod pavement pounding monster. I want
to bring her back to HER former glory.
Drivability Upgrades: Having said that, I’m not anchored to
pure stock either. I plan to add “drivability” upgrades. For example, no one needs to fiddle with a
points ignition in the 21st century. A magnetic pickup combined with a
multi-spark box makes driving SO much better, quicker throttle response, easier
starting and a modest up-tick in performance, all of which I can hide behind
the scenes.
No performance upgrades!: I’m not going to lower it, air bag it, stroke, port and polish it, shave
it, or cram an LS1 between her wings so don’t ask why I’m not doing it.
I’m going back to stock (mostly).
Parts Availability Limitations: Some stuff just isn’t available anymore.
Alphie is dressed a bit plain as a Standard Tourer (ST), like her rubber
floor mats and vinyl covered dash. No one reproduces the floor mats, and
NOS mats (New Old Stock or New Obsolete Stock, for my non-restoration geek
readers) are $$$ and very hard to find. She’ll probably sport the Gran
Turismo (GT) carpeting from purely financial concerns (besides the carpeting is
much nicer).
Conclusion - 95% Stock Restomod: Although she won’t win the Factory
Correct Class at anyone’s Concour D’elegance, she won’t suddenly prance about
in all the options on the Sunbeam order form either. I’ll probably use
stainless steel fasteners for some sparkle and the engine bay and suspension
parts will shine beyond the factory finish.
There will be some judicious powder coating too. The GT’s walnut
veneer dash may be too tempting because it’s easy and cheap to do. But overall,
I plan to bring everything back to its proper nick.
Why a Sunbeam Alpine?
I’m a Restorer: I have accepted this about myself – I get a kick out
making things work again more than bolting on a lot of brand new parts.
When I was younger, I thought I would always have a car under
restoration, but life and kids happened and money and time became scarce.
Now it’s time to dig into a new restoration!
A Project Car: I started looking on Craigslist and FaceBook Market Place
searching for specific cars: I started with a 1963 Corvair when I was 15,
so I looked for Corvairs. I have had
three Corvairs, so I spread out my search looking at Cosworth Twin Cam Vegas, Datsun
240z, 260z and 280z’s, Datsun 510’s, BMW 2002’s, Volvo P1800’s, even Econoline
cab-over pickups. Nothing was screaming “Me! Me! Me!” so I typed “project
cars” in the search line and two Sunbeam Alpines appeared, Alphie and one sad
wretch who suffered traumatic body injuries and somehow lost its engine and
tranny.
My Alpine: When I
was a kid, our next-door neighbor had a Sunbeam Tiger (the one with the Ford
small block V8 under the bonnet), and I always thought it was a cool machine.
As I read up on Alpines, I thought about what I wanted in a project and I
came up with a list:
- An unusual “cool” car for cruising: I suppose cool is in the eyes, but didn’t plan on restoring a daily driver.
- Reasonable purchase price: It will cost enough before I’m done.
- The correct state of decay: not so bad that it will take tons of money to fix and not so good that I don’t have anything to do.
- A compete car: I don’t want to scour the country looking for engines, transmissions, etc.
- A car with aftermarket/club support and parts availability: It’s very good to be able to order the perishables.
- A small car: I restored a 1964 Impala that barely fit in the garage and it was a pain because there was no room. Also, it was like doing body work on a whale; sheet metal as far as the eye could see.
Alphie hit all of these
notes, and she was waiting close by in Nashville for me. I gathered the
cash, rented a trailer, loaded the pickup and set out to find my princess.
My Alpine
Let me introduce her.
She is a Sunbeam Alpine Series IV made by The Rootes Group
in merry ol' England. She's a Standard Tourer, which means she has a soft
top with the optional hard-top, a four speed synchromesh transmission (previous
Alpine transmissions didn’t have synchronizers), and a 1592 cc inline four
cylinder Hillman engine that throws down 87 mighty horses - not exactly a fire
breathing muscle car.
She has power disc
brakes on the front and drum brakes on the rear. Coil and wishbone
suspension up front and a live axle with leaf springs in the back.
The interior is a bit
Spartan with vinyl seats & door cards, a vinyl covered dash and rubber
floor mats. Her soft top tucks into a compartment behind her rear seat,
generously referred to as an “occasional” seat. It’s not much of a seat;
“As-Little-Time-as-Possible” seat is a more accurate name.
Her luxury and
convenience package boast roll up windows… I know, but apparently, window
cranks were quite the splash of luxury back in the day. British luxury
items were on par with International Harvester tractors. A cigar (not cigarette) lighter was optional
– there were no phones to charge in 1965.
Some Interesting Facts I Know About Her
Her Hometown: She was born at the Ryton-Upon-Dunsmore Assembly Plant (aka
The Ryton Plant) in central England. The Rootes Group built the plant in
1940 to produce aircraft engines for the RAF during WWII.
Her Birthday: Her chassis ends with the numbers 1351 and, according to
production records, chassis numbers XXXX1273 through XXXX1355 were built from
November 9th through 13thof 1964. I surmise
that number 1351, the fourth cars from the last in the production run, probably
rolled off the line on either November 12th or 13th of 1964.
Her Numbers Match: Sunbeam engine numbers are the same as
the chassis number, so if the engine number is the same as the chassis number,
it’s the original engine. Alphie's numbers match, so it’s her original ticker.
Fourteen-Inch Wire Wheels: I knew she sported wire wheels, so I did
some research on Sunbeam wire wheels. The company that produced them also
produced wire wheels for MG, Triumph and several other British automakers.
My research says that all Sunbeam wire wheels were thirteen-inch
wheels. Either Alphie has big feet, or
someone in the past bolted on a set of MG or Triumph wire hoops. More
research is needed.
