Alpine 69 GT

[Jaars]

A friend forwarded me this link for a 1969 ALPINE GT for sale:
https://greensboro.craigslist.org/cto/d/asheboro-1969-sunbeam-alpine-gt/7109371805.html

Looks very much like Bob Webbs Alpine. Someone could bring it to the TEAE United this August!
Robert

 

[DanR]

IT was posted here a bit earlier under the subject "1969 Sunbeam Alpine GT in Hemmings/Barn Finds".

The GT is in Asheboro, NC and owned by Richard a gent I know.

 

[65beam]

It looks to be a great starting point looking at the appearance of the body and interior. The drawback is that there are a lot of the GT parts missing. I wonder if he has any extra parts such as the sill covers. They were wise not to reinstall them. They are a hiding place for dirt and water and lead to rust.

 

[DanR]

Bob, When I paid Richard a visit in Asheboro, he had lots of the parts to put everything back to original as I recall. Saw some of the pieces.

Was impressed by the original paint in side the car such as the trunk floor pan and the interior metal. It would make a fine restoration GT.

We even discussed the wheels, a sore point at first observation of the GT....

 

[65beam]

Bob, When I paid Richard a visit in Asheboro, he had lots of the parts to put everything back to original as I recall. Saw some of the pieces.

Was impressed by the original paint in side the car such as the trunk floor pan and the interior metal. It would make a fine restoration GT.

We even discussed the wheels, a sore point at first observation of the GT....

Dan,
The door gaps, etc. look good in the photos and if there isn't any or only a small amount of rust then that's a big plus. These cars rusted real bad. They're a great cruising car and Jose spent a while looking over my car and said he could have the V6 in it and up and running in a short time due to space under the hood. The cars came with steel wheels that have a couple differences from series 5 wheels and they used a hub cap that covered the entire wheel. As you know I stored the original wheels and went with Mini lite replicas. My white car was a very low mileage rust free car stored in a garage in D.C. early in it's life and was a complete original car with a rear fender dent except that the engine was rebuilt under warranty due to it being one of the cars sabotaged by factory workers when being built . I was fortunate that Jean bought all of Tiger Tom's stock for these cars so I was able to R&R a lot of NOS parts including almost all of the bright trim and rubber for the exterior and did a bare metal restoration of the body. I have lots of new parts and the remains of several cars still in my inventory. I can't say anything bad about the cars other than the steering is entirely different from a series Alpine but you learn to adapt. The price isn't bad because I know what we spent after giving $300.00 for ours..

 

[RootesRooter]

Some of the fastbacks were sabotaged?!? Details, please!

 

[RootesRooter]

Notice the steering column housing at the turn signal/horn/flasher column. There's a chip busted off the bottom half of the housing. I've seen dozens of fastbacks over four decades (including four I owned) and I don't think I've found more than 1 or 2 with intact housings. That same chip was busted off of virtually all of them, probably due to repeatedly pulling back too hard on the flasher stalk.

 

[65beam]

Some of the fastbacks were sabotaged?!? Details, please!

There was a union problem at the Linwood plant at one point. Various things such as sand were put in the engines. Wally once told me that when the cars were delivered from the east coast dock the parts to rebuild the engine were also shipped to the dealer if needed for a warranty repair at a later date. TT also told me this. My white car was sold by the dealer in Silver Spring , Maryland and I bought it from the original owner. He was in high school and his Dad bought the car for him. The engine didn't survive long due to sand in the engine. It received a new cam, bearings, etc. under warranty. He later hit something with the right rear fender and the wiring for the lights was messed up so in the early 70's the car was parked in his Dad's garage until I bought it on E Bay in 06. It cost me $300.00. There was a fastback in the Harrisburg, Pa area that was not titled or sold until a few years ago and the parts were still with the car. A friend tried to buy it a long time ago to repair his wrecked car but the owner wouldn't sell.

 

[65beam]

Notice the steering column housing at the turn signal/horn/flasher column. There's a chip busted off the bottom half of the housing. I've seen dozens of fastbacks over four decades (including four I owned) and I don't think I've found more than 1 or 2 with intact housings. That same chip was busted off of virtually all of them, probably due to repeatedly pulling back too hard on the flasher stalk.

Dick,
My GT didn't have the flasher function when I bought it. The owner tried to repair the rear light problem so he may have installed a new switch. I have maybe 6 NOS switches and I have several of the column surround covers that came with the parts that we bought from TT. When I'm driving the car I forget that the horn is activated by pushing in on the directional stalk. I have one new surround for a right hand drive car. Not much use for it here in the states. An NOS surround was installed when we restored the car but probably due to mileage the original didn't have the break. The first photo shows the surround with the original dash still in use. The dash in the second photo was made from scratch by TT. I sold the original to Bob Bergult. The car now has proper drink holders built into the console in place of the storage area.

 

[RootesRooter]

Wow! That GT for sale might be worth the asking price if it had either of those dashes.

 

[65beam]

Wow! That GT for sale might be worth the asking price if it had either of those dashes.

Dick,
Tiger Tom put a lot of work into the new dash. He copied the recess for the instruments which included matching the color of the finish in the recess area and cut all the switch recesses on the back side.. Did you notice that my seats and door panels have cloth inserts instead of being all vinyl? I'm starting the process of stripping out the engine bay for detailing and it looks like A. C. may be installed when done.