Flying Tiger – 1964 Sunbeam Tiger

With the recent passing of automotive icon Carroll Shelby, it is easy to look at his  amazing life through the lens of his greatest achievements—the revered Cobra and GT350 being but two that will immediately pop to mind for most casual enthusiasts. But Shelby’s career as a constructor and team owner was much more than just snakes and horses. For a brief time, in 1964, Shelby unleashed a tiger, as well.

Alpine Sickness

The story of Shelby’s involvement with the Tiger starts as early as 1956. Like so many European car manufacturers in the ’50s, Britain’s Rootes Group was looking for an economical sports car that would appeal to the seemingly bottomless American market. Since 1953, Rootes Group had been selling the fairly heavy and sedate 2.3-liter Sunbeam Alpine. Based off the Sunbeam-Talbot 90 Saloon, the Alpine looked more like a mini-Bentley than a Ferrari and had performance that set no one’s heart aflutter.