NEW GUY SAYING HI

echo1

Bronze forum user
Messages
8
Hello All,

Tiger owner since '70. First rig was a '65, white with black hard top, red interior, totaled in '72.

Number 2 was a '66 I aquired it in '75 for $1200, BRG, black HT and interior. The previous owner did a clutch but, put a gear lever on upside down and the shift pattern was wrong (easy fix). Very nice car 35K (?) miles when I sold it to a fella from Holister for $2500 in '77.

Current rig I bought from my nephew in '78. It was in poor shape, had taken a bad hit on the left door pillar soon after he got it, rockers rusted fender to fender. He had rebuilt the 260, but the rings never seated and it smoked. His future BIL had just total a '67 Mustang GT fastback, with less than 1K on a mildly warm K code 289, so that ended up in it. He offer it to me for $2 grand. I normally would have passed, as Tigers were around for fair prices then, but this was a RHD car, and at the time there were only 6 or 8 stateside. Also it was a crappy light blue with a "KalKustom" ribbed scoop.

While giving it the once over when he first got it, I noticed it had Konis all around, two 1/4"X3" flat bars welded underneath, running from the cross brace to a substancial bracket incorporated into the rear bumper, and a huge ding in the front cross member. I mentioned to him that the rig looked like it had been rallyed when it was in the UK.

I've had it since, 36 years, only put 175 miles on it maybe. I picked a '67 Alipine donor and a clean '65 Alpine clone candidate in '80, both of which I still have too.

Other Brit suff I've run, 3 Anglias, 3 Hillman Huskys (1 had LAT 9 rims on it??). But I've made a lot of side ducats building VW motors and Baja bugs. Still running my son's '70 bug.

On the engine stands or dollies in the shop:
260 (the one that smoked)
289 rebuilt short block
351W (Clone Wars)
2-1600 DP VW rebuilds, if you run VWs, you have spares :)
1600 short block (wedding present)
2.0 T-4 VW rebuild, hunting for the RIGHT '72 Westy to stab it in
215 Olds crate moter with rebuilt 2 sp tranny, zero miles since '63, for a 140 Volvo conversion.

I was in STOA once upon a decade, and my middle son and I went to a swap meet at Sunbeam Specialities in March 2012, as we were going to go all out on my Tiger together, and wanted to get caught up on it all. But he passed away that year and it took the wind out of my sails.

Life got in the way, 3 sons, 4 AMXs, couple flying machines. That's the short story. I'm getting after it in 2015 though. PAX
 
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Great stuff Echo1! All but the part about losing your son. I hope time has been healing some of the hurt. Can't imagine you ever get over it.

God bless,
Paul
 
Hi Echo1. Welcome to the forum. Where about in Norcal? I'm in Morgan Hill. Is that a B-25 in your Avatar? Is that one of your flying machines that got in the way?
 
Another NorCal aviator family welcome

Grandpap AAF and flew those things in your sig; ret.USAF Lt.Col Travis, RIP.
Dad exUSAF,all things air, heli>big commercial>corp.jet; never ret. but pancreas did, RIP 2012 as well, followed by best friend shortly after. Lets call it a more than a crappy year, with the exception of some good baseball. I'm sorry for your loss...

Dad bought crappy blue '66 new in signature below, but grew tired of color early 70's. Guys on here helping me try and get it back together. But, I did put it back to blue already. ;-)

Will be nice bringing in another Tiger wrencher, and did you look into any lineage on the car?

Welcome,
Derek / San Mateo <> San Jose
 
Thanks for the welcome fellas,

It's a B-25 indeed, I wish it were mine. In '76 I passed on one for $25K that had been sitting for a couple decades. Buddy of mine got it and wrenched on it for a week or two, lit it off and flew it on the deck back to the barn, without cycling the props or gear. He doubled his ducats in a few months.

Flew out to Morgan Hill on occasion, and had the Flying Lady shuttle collect my boys and me. Too bad about that place. When we lived in Freekmont, we'd hit the Morgan Hill wine tastin' circut on a regular basis.

My middle boy, Zippy, had a '70 Mini. We were watching a Speed Vision doc on the Coopers. We were watching a segment on the Mini's success in the '66 Scottish Rallye, when the GT class winner, a light blue, RHD hood scooped Tiger EGA 65C, driven piloted by Wilson/Harper, flew by the screen for a few frames. Both my son and I jumped up and said "Did you see that!" Looked exactly like my car, could it be?

Years passed and I contacted Noman Miller and asked him what the VIN number was for that Brit champ, EGA 65C. There is no vin # record of that plate. He said that his records show that the vehicle had been destroyed, and that my car was made on the Wednesday before the rallye, making it unlikely that it had been campaigned there. But, as we all know, the Brits plate # is what they track, and the Rootes Company records were hand written and/or not precise. My car shows signs of rough road work. There's a cantalope sized smash, square in the middle front of the suspension cross member. You'd have to be at speed to make a dent like that. I'd like to know how many ugly blue, hood scooped RHD rallye cars there were. Would be bo$$-o-cool if it was. Tough to track down, any ideas? PAX
 
Welcome to the site, I too am in nor cal. I sold my "crappy blue" Tiger last month but still have another Tiger and Alger to play with. Hope to see you and the Tiger on the road soon.
 
Other crappy blue

64 Falcon convertible a close match but less gray then the Med blue in the stable. VW conv too. Lots of similar toys in the CAT box I mean garage. Wicked plane please post pic of the nose art in your profile album. Pics like that are a good reminder of what we stand for in the U.S.

Have you contacted Graham in the U.K. ?

http://www.sunbeamtiger.co.uk/index2.htm

He posts here as but not often using his tag number HRS XXX? or something like that.

My pal has my old 69 Westy stored on my Southern junkyard I mean rental property. Luv the old busses just too scared to drive em.
Yeah I know not much safer in the Tiger but at least can get out of the way faster..

Welcome aboard
 
64 Falcon convertible a close match but less gray then the Med blue in the stable. VW conv too. Lots of similar toys in the CAT box I mean garage. Wicked plane please post pic of the nose art in your profile album. Pics like that are a good reminder of what we stand for in the U.S.
Have you contacted Graham in the U.K. ?
http://www.sunbeamtiger.co.uk/index2.htm
He posts here as but not often using his tag number HRS XXX? or something like that.
My pal has my old 69 Westy stored on my Southern junkyard I mean rental property. Luv the old busses just too scared to drive em.
Yeah I know not much safer in the Tiger but at least can get out of the way faster..
Welcome aboard

Tried to register with STOC UK, but had an issue with confermation code, contacted admin. Left a note as a guest

Not sure of profile album picts, turned out the same size, so here's one. The nose art is photo shopped by me using a different site art work (with his permission). I do have a lot of warbird video including, air to air, from when I had a video production company. Enjoy.

What part of the world is that Westy hiding, trade, barter, cash? PAX

 
Fox

Very nice but not the kind of Fox I was hoping the see, I guess the Fox is Hysterically correct as you could have a machine gun back then. :)

Send me a PM with your #

I'm sure Graham will be in touch.
 
Very nice but not the kind of Fox I was hoping the see, I guess the Fox is Hysterically correct as you could have a machine gun back then. :)

Send me a PM with your #

I'm sure Graham will be in touch.

If I ever get all my airshow footsge transfered and logged, from video tape to a digital medium, I'll post some video and picts. I've got some of the best assemblage of warbird footage around. Air to air from the nose of the B-25 "Heavenly Body" and most of the flying B-25s at the time, in formation. When I started up my production company, that first year my crew and I, shot air shows fron Minter Field in Shafter, to the Reno Air Races. Having worked for a cropdusting outfit for 10 years, I was hooked up at all the strips where the shows were at.

One of my commercial demo reels, is a montage of Santana (that I shot as the only camera man on stage front, during the '87 Carnival in the City) and air shows, including POV out of Lefty Gardners P-38. Aviation is one of my passions, but not for the faint of pocket book. PAX
 
Beyond Sunbeam type topic

but so long as we're on it... Family greatly enjoyed Crissy Field yesterday...

P51's in dive mode have the greatest whistling from the wingtips... In many shows, had never experienced from that angle. Must have been terrifying in use, but for a show... really great. Angels obviously, never disappoint.

Shafter...heh... Mom from the area, told a few on here that its interesting to learn of the Visalia Dodge Boys racing team (alpine) from the early days. And with your crop dusting, bet you came across family farm fields at some point. My father would have LOVED to swap stories with you...he dreamed of doing your gig.

Lots of Sunbeam history around these parts... lots... with the day off, i should stop typing on here and go get some wrenching done.

(lazy...)
 
DD,

I grew up in the Pit (Bay Area), and was around when STOA was just materializing. My buddy liked mine so much, he picked up a '66 BRG and massaged the motor a little, ended up with little stress wrinkles aft of the front wheel arches. My other bud got a call from his cousin who had a Tiger on his lot that in had just come in. We went and checked it out. The back story was that it was a Shelby American 289 mod, one of 12. When we opened the bonnet, we were looking at 4 Webber 2s on that 289, could've been 8 ones. His cousin fired it off, it would barely idle at a grand the cam was so radical. He shut it off, closed the hood, and didn't even go for a test ride. He looked at me and said he'd get killed in that thing. At the time he was driving a '67 SS/RS 425hp 327 Camaro, that had been blueprinted front to back by Vic Hubbards Speed & Marine in Hayward. His brother had the car built and drove it straight from the dealer in Washinton State (where he was stationed), to Vics.

Speaking of P-51s, I've got a cool pict of my youngest boy sitting on the wing of one with Bill Destefani. That bird would go on to be come Strega.
At the Minter show, I was standing up between the pilot and co-pilots seat in a Howard 250 twin. With all the birds in the air, the fighters knew we were shooting video, and made passes from right to left in front of us. Hawkers, Spits, 'Stangs, P-40s, A Yak and a P-38. I think at Madera I got one of the last interviews with "Pappy" Boington. He really opened up, as I focused my inquieries on his time with the AVG in China. I shot the only remaining Zero ace there too. PAX
 
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