Background
The Tiger started life as the humble Sunbeam Alpine, which had been introduced in 1959, a pretty sports car from from one of the Rootes Group’s popular brands, but it easily felt the four cylinder engine couldn't deliver the power to release the full potential of the car, so a bigger motor was sought.
The story goes that Sunbeam service manager Walter McKenzie was sent around the local car dealers with a wooden ruler to measure engines and find one that would fit!
He came back with news that the light weight Ford 260 V8 should fit.
Shelby, creators of the Cobra from the British AC Ace, were approached to develop a prototype, which they said would take 8 weeks and $10,000, which head of sales, Brian Rootes, approved.
Meanwhile Rootes were keen to know if the idea would work, so gave racer and builder Ken Miles $800, an engine and spare car to see what he could do. Miles had it running in a week.
Lord Rootes was reportedly very grumpy when he learned a car had been developed behind his back, but after driving the car he was so impressed he personally called Henry Ford II to negotiate buying the engines.
The Tiger is externally the same as the Alpine, its twice as powerful but only 20% heavier so needed some tweaks under the skin, including updating to more modern rack and pinion steering.
