Looking for a Hard top

[Warren]

Sean, I should have said that allegedly some cars were special ordered and not randomly chosen color resale 39 or 86.
Norm made it clear and was always interested in colors of cars probably for that reason. Picture from Graham....

 

[Theorangetiger]

starting somewhere around car B947800 or so, Jensen started noting color on some of the cars, but not all. there are also some notations for "ST" or "HT" which I am guessing is soft top and hardtop. why it's only some of the cars I have no idea. Jensen continued to make sporadic notations on color and with the ST or HT notation at least through car B9471900. There are no notations for color or ST/HT for the B382 or B3821 series of tigers

Maybe Jensen knew the hardtops would get swapped around at the dealers depending on what customers wanted so they figured the cars were just being shipped with or without a hardtop but that didn't mean they would remain that way and it wasn't an integral part of the car's build.
I read somewhere that the body color HTs were kind of shipped that way and the dealers would sort out how they were sold depending again on customer preferences.

 

[KenF]

I imagine Sunbeam put many black tops on Tigers/Alpines just to easily ship them to dealers as needed to replenish supply, save on freight, and help them make extra $. Maybe the notation "ST" was for Ship Top.

 

[Austin Healer]

Sean, I should have said that allegedly some cars were special ordered and not randomly chosen color resale 39 or 86.
Norm made it clear and was always interested in colors of cars probably for that reason. Picture from Graham....

View attachment 16549

I'm sure that's the case I just came across a MK1 in the B9471800 range that was noted as "B" Grey... got to be a pretty unusual color for a Tiger

 

[65beam]

that's an interesting car! looks like Jaguar fender vents and painted TR4 taillight housings

I think the tail lights were cut off sections of an early Alpine with the big fins. The fender sections bolt onto the fenders just as the later tail light units are secured. When we had the United in Boyne City, Michigan he told me what car the vents were used on but I can't remember. He lived and was a teacher at a school in Morgantown, W.Va and the work was done locally. His other Tiger has a continental tire kit on the rear that was mounted like a mid 50's T Bird. He had that Tiger at SUNI 1. John passed away several months ago so I don't know what Melanie has done or will do with the two Tigers and all of the Alpines he owned.

 

[canbeam]

Too bad can't get the ledger page holders to respond. My survey of one car is not too convincing, plus about 10 or 12 pages in my collection. I've found black under all that I have taken apart. White is very UK proper high visibility and much cooler than black especially with the useless jute stock paddi

My first Tiger in early 70's came with a white top on an original paint white car. It never occurred to me at the time that the top likely came that way from the factory. My brother bought his Tiger in 68 and every other Tiger I saw, including his, had a black top. I wasn't fussy on the white so when I restored the car, I painted it a dark metallic Ford blue, Midnight Blue, if I remember correctly. I kept the top white though as I thought it complemented the dark car. Here's a B&W taken shortly after the repaint, probably about 1975.

 

[at the beach]

At some point in time AF-4 acquired a Webasto roof. In our restoration we've decided to keep it.

A different hard top that I'd like to find (for our beater Tiger) is an Astro fastback like Gordon Chittenden displayed (but never ran?) on the Larry Reed drag racing Tiger. Any hints will be appreciated.

 

[Warren]

I've seen a couple guys that had a Webasto roof copied . The ASC Mc Laren builder AKA Automatic Sunroof Corporation used to be on La Brea in L.A. It's been years since I drove by there.

 

[michael-king]

At some point in time AF-4 acquired a Webasto roof. In our restoration we've decided to keep it.

A different hard top that I'd like to find (for our beater Tiger) is an Astro fastback like Gordon Chittenden displayed (but never ran?) on the Larry Reed drag racing Tiger. Any hints will be appreciated?View attachment 16571

Buck I'll mail you.. I know of 3 stateside... 1 actually i helped export from Australia in the mid 2010s

 

[0neoffive]

At some point in time AF-4 acquired a Webasto roof. In our restoration we've decided to keep it.

A different hard top that I'd like to find (for our beater Tiger) is an Astro fastback like Gordon Chittenden displayed (but never ran?) on the Larry Reed drag racing Tiger. Any hints will be appreciated.View attachment 16571

Yep, that's a cool look fer sure .

 

[HolyCat]

Yep, that's a cool look fer sure .

Good thing that a quartermiler car doesn't need to see what is slightly behind and to the side. Note there is no outside mirror on the right hand side. Would recommend a RH side mirror for any street car with this cool looking hardtop.

 

[at the beach]

The legend is that the fastback top was never run anywhere, not even on the drag strip. Supposedly it was popped on in the driveway shown in the picture. The picture was taken and that was the end of the fastback top on the Larry Reed Tiger. Noted Porsche driver Scooter Patrick once told me that he and some other Rootes dealers lobbied for a Super Tiger equipped with a HiPo 289. 4 wheel discs and the fastback top but couldn't get Rootes to go along. Perhaps this photo was part of that effort.

 

[michael-king]

The legend is that the fastback top was never run anywhere, not even on the drag strip. Supposedly it was popped on in the driveway shown in the picture. The picture was taken and that was the end of the fastback top on the Larry Reed Tiger. Noted Porsche driver Scooter Patrick once told me that he and some other Rootes dealers lobbied for a Super Tiger equipped with a HiPo 289. 4 wheel discs and the fastback top but couldn't get Rootes to go along. Perhaps this photo was part of that effort.

Might explain the low angle of the photo...the astro top requires the boot ( trunk) to be taken off... If they just rested it on.. The low angle would hide the top not fitting right ...but .. Not sure it would fit over the vertical face of the boot and still clip to the screen....

 

[at the beach]

Michael, I managed to pick up an Astro top today from up in the bay area. We left before dawn and returned after sunset. Long but successful drive.
Now one task is to have a new rear window made for it. (Probably will make more than one window - just in case.)
And the top will need more work than just that. ;-(

 

[michael-king]

Michael, I managed to pick up an Astro top today from up in the bay area. We left before dawn and returned after sunset. Long but successful drive.
Now one task is to have a new rear window made for it. (Probably will make more than one window - just in case.)
And the top will need more work than just that. ;-(

Congratulations buck!
As for the rear Windows.. Iirc they used the same window on the Datsun, Healey and MG tops... Not saying you can find one from those...but might widen the market if you need to move a few 😉

 

[michael-king]

The top on a datsun.

 

[michael-king]

I would guess same mold and they just cut the leading edge doen for the smaller cars

 

[at the beach]

On the Sunbeam the hard top deleted the trunk and fits exactly in the side channels for the trunk.

 

[michael-king]

Buck. The "same mold" comment was in regard to possible cross over market for the rear windows, i suspect the rear window is the same mold and the smaller tops they cut the leading edge of the window.