The Car Challenge

[Dannie Boy]

Not a Jag or a Hilman (although this car later became part of the same group - Rootes), so certainly a British car.

[Big Boy]

image_car.jpg (49.39 KiB) Viewed 504 times

[dtaai-maai]

I think it's a Sunbeam of some sort, though don't ask me the details of the maker. My father had one after the war, and, coincidentally, I had a Sunbeam Rapier about 40 years later.

[magnum]

Sunbeam Talbot maybe, part of the Rootes group.

[Dannie Boy]

Sunbeam Talbot maybe, part of the Rootes group.

Correct Magnum, a 1947 Sunbeam Talbot which was the same years as my fathers and quite a nice car in it's day. Although not unique, an unusual feature was that the front doors opened from the front rather than the back.

[dtaai-maai]

sunbeam rapier.jpg (14.93 KiB) Viewed 492 times

My Rapier was something like this, though silver/grey with a dark roof. It had an 'overdrive' switch, which was really just an extra gear, I think. I liked the car, but it had done about 60k miles when I bought it in the late 70s and was just at that stage cars reached in those days when everything started to go wrong at the same time...

[Frank Hovis]

Rostyle wheels and a vinyl roof?
Ladies beware !

Are matt black hoods (bonnets) the new 'vinyl roof' ?

[Dannie Boy]

sunbeam rapier.jpg

My Rapier was something like this, though silver/grey with a dark roof. It had an 'overdrive' switch, which was really just an extra gear, I think. I liked the car, but it had done about 60k miles when I bought it in the late 70s and was just at that stage cars reached in those days when everything started to go wrong at the same time...

Either that, or the rust would get them!!

Nostalgic times though, you could buy the same basic car but with different badges and different specs, e.g. Hilman Minx, Sunbeam Rapier, Singer Vogue, Humber Sceptre. Same in the BMC mould, Austin, Morris, Wolsey, MG, Vandan Plas, Riley.

[DSB]

sunbeam rapier.jpg

My Rapier was something like this, though silver/grey with a dark roof. It had an 'overdrive' switch, which was really just an extra gear, I think. I liked the car, but it had done about 60k miles when I bought it in the late 70s and was just at that stage cars reached in those days when everything started to go wrong at the same time...

I had one of them too - it was my first car! The overdrive worked in 3rd and 4th, and ws just a couple of extra gears. I had mine in the early 80's.

[STEVE G]

My friend had one of those Rapiers back in the eighties as well; we once got stopped for speeding in it, mainly due to the fact that we had a sailing dinghy on the roof-rack at the time!

[dtaai-maai]

Rostyle wheels and a vinyl roof?
Ladies beware !

Be fair, that was the general idea - I was 22 and moving up from a Vauxhall Viva!

[Big Boy]

we once got stopped for speeding in it, mainly due to the fact that we had a sailing dinghy on the roof-rack at the time!

Sorry, but I've got to ask - did you have the spinaker up with a strong tailwind

[Frank Hovis]

No pictures - just clues.

The offspring of Jimmy Hill and Serena Williams, with a splash of James Bond and nothing from Cameron Diaz.

[STEVE G]

we once got stopped for speeding in it, mainly due to the fact that we had a sailing dinghy on the roof-rack at the time!

Sorry, but I've got to ask - did you have the spinaker up with a strong tailwind

I remember being surprised that it would do over eighty with a boat on the roof, unfortunately so were the police!

[Frank Hovis]

No pictures - just clues (a few more)

The offspring of Jimmy Hill and Serena Williams, with a splash of James Bond and nothing from Cameron Diaz, even when I finish first I am still number two, those in front of me are just blockers.