Sunbeam Club came to our autocross, not many shenanigans occured. But they were fun to watch.

We had our normal event yesterday, but there was a big meeting for Sunbeam owners that weekend, and we scheduled our event to have them join us. About 30+ Sunbeams of various level of stock/custom/modified variety came out to actually run around our track.

I don't know much about them, but learned a little talking to some of the owners in the grid and at lunch. It was fun listening to the different exhaust notes... 4 cylinder, 6 cylinder, and definitely a few flavors of V8. I heard they were straight live axle rear ends and expected much more spinouts, but only witnessed a few (at least while I was Safety Steward).

They said they had just over 100 cars for their weekend event, so it was amazing to me to see 30+ actually abuse theirs a little, versus a Sunday cruise to the local car show if the sun is shining. All in all they were a friendly group & most seem to enjoy the day (even if the sun was brutal).

I liked this one, the old and the new.

We did a similar thing with Mini Meet East at our June event. We only got 8 or 10 classic Minis, but it was cool to see them. Some of those guys drove their little cars like rented mules.

On the OT, we used to have a guy that brought a beautiful baby blue Alpine to our events, but I haven't seen him this year. That's kind of a shame, because I made a class called Classic Street Car more or less just for him and guys like him.

It's funny to me because for many years Sunbeams were almost invisible on the vintage car scene. Now they will turn out in bigger numbers than MGs or Triupmhs.

my first car was an Alpine … I know the 4 cyl and the 8 cyl versions … what was the 6 cyl car ?

In reply to wbjones:

I'm not sure myself. From what I gathered from the various owners I talked to, the 6cyl might just be what was swapped. One guy said probably most of the cars there had very little OEM engine or exhaust components.

The early Ford V6 was a popular swap. Some people call them Algers, although some say an Alger is an Alpine converted to a Tiger.

The group I organize with is having the Fiat club out again. Shame we mostly get new 500's, but they have brought some neat old stuff before