1954 Sunbeam Tiger Le Mans Coupe - Leno's Garage

[TheBrownHornet]

I was directed to the following page by a friend.
Jay Leno's garage appears to be doing a feature on a 1954 Sunbeam Tiger Le Mans Coupe.

http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/1954-sunbeam-tiger-le-mans-coupe---coming-oct-10/

My first response was that I'd not heard of a tiger coupe but managed to google this up:
http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/car/2548/Sunbeam-Tiger-Harrington-Coupe.html

1954 sounds about 10 years early and I have no idea about the Le Mans classification.

I'm interested in the thoughts of those with a much greater knowledge than I

Cheers

Graham

 

[George Coleman]

That should be 64 and they made one tiger herrington i have pictures of it at a United some years ago. It was at the second Sunni meet in Wiscon.

 

[alpine_64]

The car in the pics on the jay leno site is the Loraine Gurry Sunbeam Tiger that she raced at the Monterey historics this year. The car is visually similar to the HSC55 car.


Perhaps the poster got it confused with the 1964 Le Mans Tiger mule that was racing there at the same event.



As for the Harrington tiger.. that is apparently the only factory converted car... there are 2 others, 1 a converted tiger.. the other a S3 alpine that was tigerised.. and harringtonised.

 

[Chuck Ingram]

The Lemans tiger mule was owned by Dick Barker who restored it.The car was rebodied to what we see now after the mechanicals were done and was driven.
Brian Lister of Jaguar fame did the development of the original 2 cars. Hence the connection as to the Lister Tigers

Dick was more than helpful when I was building mine.I was very pleased to have been able to meet him in person.

 

[Alpine 1789]

The Leno piece is now online and both cars are shown: http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/extras/pebble-beach/1965-sunbeam-tiger/#more

 

[mattinoz]

I'd love to see the footage Leno refers to of Shelby working on the prototype Tiger way back when and its unveiling in the UK