Sunbeam

1922–23 14 hp, the first post-war four-cylinder

1924 12/30 and 16/50 only produced in small numbers

1924–26 14/40 and big brother 20/60 developed from 14 hp with two more cylinders added.

1926–30 3-litre Super Sports, Sunbeam's Bentley rival.

1926–30 16 hp (known as "16.9") and 20 hp (known as "20.9"). Two new designs with six-cylinder integral cast iron block and crankcase. Both were produced over many years. The 20.9 with a 3-litre engine producing 70 bhp shared components with the 3-litre Super Sports (brakes, suspension, steering, axles, gearbox, transmission).

1926–32 20/60 developed into 25 hp with bore increased from 75 to 80 mm. A few 8-cylinder cars produced in this period, 30 hp & 35 hp.

1930–32 16 hp bore increased from 67 to 70 mm, (known as "18.2").

1931–33 New model 20 hp (known as "23.8") introduced with 80 mm bore and 7 main bearings rated at 23.8 hp.

1933–34 New model Speed 20 consisting of 20.9 hp engine resurrected with improved exhaust manifold and downdraught carb installed in new cruciform braced chassis.

1933 18.2 hp engine installed in Speed 20 chassis and renamed 'Twenty'.

1933–35 Twenty-Five introduced with modified 1931–33 23.8 hp engine.

1934 Twenty given the 20.9 engine in place of the 18.2.

1934–35 Dawn introduced. 12.8 engine and IFS.

1935 Speed 20 renamed Sports 21 with redesigned body style.

1935 Sports 21 given a high compression version of Twenty-Five engine.

The most successful, judged by volumes, was the 16 hp (16.9) followed by 20 hp (20.9) made from 1926 to 1930. Whilst the 16 was solid and very reliable, it was a little underpowered at 2.1 litres; the 20.9 made a big jump to 3 litres and 70 bhp (52 kW; 71 PS) with similar body weight and vacuum servo brakes and was capable of 70 mph (110 km/h).

Sunbeam built their own bodies but also supplied to the coachbuilder trade; many limousines were built on Sunbeam chassis. The sales catalogue illustrates the standard body designs.

Financial difficulties arose in the early years of the Great Depression and just before the opening of the October 1934 Olympia Motor Show an application was made to the court for an appointment of a receiver and manager for the two major subsidiaries of S T D, Sunbeam and Automobiles Talbot France. Clément-Talbot remained profitable and was sold to the Rootes brothers. It proved impossible for the directors to avoid the appointment of a receiver to Sunbeam Motor Car Company and S T D was unable to complete its sale to Rootes. However six months later in July 1935 Rootes Securities announced they had bought Sunbeam Motor Car Company and its subsidiary Sunbeam Commercial Vehicles.

The following cars were built by Sunbeam Motor Car Company Limited.

Buses

Car production was terminated but trolleybus production continued. Karrier's trolleybus business was moved from Huddersfield to Moorfield (not Luton with other Karrier operations) and combined with Sunbeam but the same Karrier designs were to be produced. During wartime the factory produced the only trolleybus available in the UK; a four-wheeled double decker known as either the Karrier or Sunbeam W4.

In 1946 soon after the end of the Second World War J. Brockhouse and Co Limited of West Bromwich, the engineering group, bought Sunbeam Commercial Vehicles but in September 1948 sold the trolley-bus part of the business to Guy Motors Limited. who built Sunbeam trolleybuses at their factory until the last was completed in 1964.

Double decker buses

Sikh 1930–1933 (three built)

Pathan 1930–1938 (at least four built for Woverhampton Corp)

DF2 1936–1948 (one built for Wolverhampton Corp)

Double decker trolleybuses

MS2 1934–1948

MS3 1934–1948

MF1 1934–1949

MF2 1935–1952

W4 1943–1947

F4/F4A 1948–1965

S7/S7A 1948–1958

Double or single-deck trolleybus

MF2B 1934–65

Brisbane City Council (Australia) imported Sunbeam single-deck trolleybus chassis from 1951 until 1960. All had been withdrawn by 1969. Two of these, fleet numbers 1 (of 1951, with a body by Charles Hope of Brisbane) and 34 (of 1960, body by Athol Hedges), are preserved at the Brisbane Tramway Museum.

Sunbeam-Coatalen aero engines

Sunbeam, Wolverhampton, England, started to build aircraft engines in 1912. Louis Coatalen joined Sunbeam as chief engineer in 1909, having previously been Chief Engineer at the Humber works in Coventry. The company quickly became one of the UK's leading engine manufacturers and even designed an aircraft of its own. Sunbeam discontinued the production of aero engines after Coatalen left the company in the 1930s.

Sunbeam Crusader V8, 150 hp (110 kW)

Sunbeam Zulu V8, 160 hp (120 kW), developed from Crusader

Sunbeam Mohawk V12, 225 hp (168 kW)

Sunbeam Gurkha V12, 240 hp (180 kW), developed from Maori

Sunbeam Cossack V12, 320 hp (240 kW), 18.4 litres

Sunbeam Nubian V8, 155 hp (116 kW), 7.7 litres

Sunbeam Afridi V12, 200 hp (150 kW), 11.476 litres

Sunbeam Maori V12, 250 hp (190 kW), 14.7 litres, developed from Afridi

Sunbeam Amazon Straight-6, 160 hp (120 kW), 9.2 litres, developed from Cossack

Sunbeam Saracen Straight-6, 200 hp (150 kW), 11.2 litres, developed from Amazon

Sunbeam Viking W18 "Broad Arrow" 450 hp (340 kW), 33.6 litres, developed from Cossack

Sunbeam Arab V8, 200 hp (150 kW), 11.8 litres

Sunbeam Bedouin inverted V8, 200 hp (150 kW), 12.3 litres, developed from Arab

Sunbeam Manitou V12, 325 hp (242 kW), 14.7 litres, developed from Maori

Sunbeam Tartar V12, 300 hp (220 kW), 15.4 litres

Sunbeam Kaffir W12 "Broad Arrow" 300 hp (220 kW), developed from Arab, 18.3 litres

Sunbeam Spartan V12, 200 hp (150 kW), 14 litres, air-cooled

Sunbeam Matabele V12, 400 hp (300 kW), 22.4 litres, developed from Cossack

Sunbeam Malay Five-pointed star arrangement of 20 cylinders, 500 hp (370 kW), 29.4 litres

Sunbeam Pathan Straight-6, 100 hp (75 kW), 8.8 litres, diesel

Sunbeam Dyak Straight-6, 100 hp (75 kW), 8.8 litres

Sunbeam Sikh V12, 800 hp (600 kW), 64.1 litres

Sunbeam Sikh II

Sunbeam Sikh III

Sunbeam 2,000hp

Grand Prix cars

Coatalen was pleased to build racing cars for Henry Segrave, who won the French and Spanish GPs in 1923/4. In 1921 Segrave participated in his first Grand Prix on Talbot no.10, in effect a re-badged 1921 Grand Prix Sunbeam. This important straight-eight dohc, four valve per cylinder aluminium block car influenced by the great designer Ernest Henry proceeded to win the 1922 Tourist Trophy in the hands of Jean Chassagne.

A different team of 2-litre dohc 1922 Grand Prix Sunbeams designed by Ernest Henry were entered in that year's French Grand Prix. Sunbeam also manufactured the 1923 Sunbeam Grand Prix race car.

World land speed record cars

He also built a Brooklands racer with a purpose-built V12 18.3-litre engine whose design was a hybrid of the Sunbeam Manitou and the Sunbeam Arab aero engines. This engine had four blocks of three cylinders arranged in two banks set at 60 degrees (unlike the Arab which were set at 90 degrees). Each cylinder had one inlet and two exhaust valves actuated by a single overhead camshaft. The two camshafts were driven by a complex set of 16 gears from the front of the crankshaft – a similar arrangement to that used on the Maori engine which had two OHC per bank of cylinders. This famous car (Sunbeam 350HP) established three Land Speed Records, the first achieved by Kenelm Lee Guinness at Brooklands in 1922 with a speed of 133.75 mph. Malcolm Campbell then purchased the car, had it painted in his distinctive colour scheme, named it Blue Bird and in September 1924 achieved a new record speed of 146.16 mph at Pendine Sands in South Wales, raising it the following year to 150.76 mph. The same year Coatalen's new 3-litre Super Sports came 2nd at Le Mans, beating Bentley – this was the first production twin-cam car in the world. In 1926 Segrave captured the LSR in a new 4-litre V12 Sunbeam racer originally named Ladybird and later renamed Tiger. Coatalen decided to re-enter the LSR field himself, building the truly gigantic Sunbeam 1000HP powered by two 450 hp (340 kW) Matabele engines. On 29 March 1927 the car captured the speed record at 203.792 mph (327.971 km/h). The car is now at the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu, UK.

A later land speed record attempt, with the 1930 Silver Bullet, failed to achieve either records, or the hoped-for advances in aero engines. It is now almost forgotten.

Sunbeam badged vehicles

Rootes Group

Rootes was an early exponent of badge engineering, building a single mass-produced chassis and equipping it with different body panels and interiors to fit different markets. They ended production of existing models at all the new companies, replacing them with designs from Hillman and Humber that were more amenable to mass production.

Although Rootes' intention had been to continue the Sunbeam name on a large and expensive luxury car, the eight-cylinder Sunbeam 30. After almost four years it was announced Sunbeam Motors and Clement-Talbot were now combined under the ownership of Clement Talbot Limited – since renamed Sunbeam-Talbot Limited – and would produce good quality cars at reasonable prices. During 1937 Humber Limited bought Clement Talbot Limited and Sunbeam Motors Limited from Rootes Securities Limited.

In 1938 Rootes created a new marque called Sunbeam-Talbot which combined the quality Talbot coachwork and the current Hillman and Humber chassis and was assembled at the Talbot factory in London. The initial two models were the Sunbeam-Talbot 10 and the 3-litre followed by the Sunbeam-Talbot 2 Litre and 4-litre models based on the earlier models only with different engines and longer wheelbases. Production of these models continued after the war until 1948.

In the summer of 1948, the Sunbeam-Talbot 80 and Sunbeam-Talbot 90 were introduced, with a totally new streamlined design with flowing front fenders (wings). The 80 used the Hillman Minx-based engine with ohv and the 90 used a modified version of the Humber Hawk with ohv. The car bodies were manufactured by another Rootes Group company, British Light Steel Pressings of Acton, however the convertible drophead coupé shells were completed by Thrupp & Maberly coachbuilders in Cricklewood. The underpowered 80 was discontinued in 1950. The 90 was renamed the 90 Mark II and then the 90 Mark IIA and eventually in 1954 the Sunbeam Mark III, finally dropping the Talbot name. With the model name changes, the headlights were raised on the front fenders and an independent coil front suspension and the engine displacement went from 1944 cc to 2267 cc with a high compression head and developing 80 bhp (60 kW; 81 PS).

There was one more model of the Sunbeam-Talbot that appeared in 1953 in the form of an Alpine, a two-seater sports roadster which was initially developed by a Sunbeam-Talbot dealer George Hartwell in Bournemouth as a one-off rally car that had its beginnings as a 1952 drophead coupé. It was named supposedly by Norman Garrad, (works Competition Department) who was heavily involved in the Sunbeam-Talbot successes in the Alpine Rally in the early 1950s using the Saloon model. The Alpine Mark I and Mark III (a Mark II was never made) were hand built like the Drophead Coupé at Thrupp & Maberly coachbuilders from 1953 to 1955 when production ceased after close to 3000 were produced. It has been estimated that perhaps only 200 remain in existence today. The Talbot name was dropped in 1954 for the Sunbeam Alpine sports car, making Sunbeam the sports-performance marque. In 1955 a Sunbeam saloon won the Monte Carlo Rally. Production ceased in 1956 and was replaced by the sporty Sunbeam Rapier.

In 1959 a totally new Alpine was introduced, and the 1955 Rapier (essentially a badge-engineered Hillman Minx) was upgraded. After several successful series of the Alpine were released, director of US West-Coast operations, Ian Garrad, became interested in the success of the AC Cobra, which mounted a small-block V-8 engine in the small AC Ace frame to create one of the most successful sports cars of all time. Garrad became convinced the Alpine frame could also be adapted the same way, and contracted Carroll Shelby to create a prototype with a Ford engine. The result was the Sunbeam Tiger, released in 1964, which became a success. It sold 7,000 units in its three years of production compared with 70,000 over nine years for the small-engined car.

Chrysler Europe

But at this point, Rootes was in financial trouble. Talks with Leyland Motors were fruitless. In 1964, 30 percent of the company (along with 50 percent of the non-voting shares) was purchased by Chrysler, who was attempting to enter the European market. Ironically, Chrysler had purchased Simca the year earlier, who had earlier purchased Automobiles Talbot, originally the British brand that had been merged into STD Motors many years earlier.

Chrysler's experience with the Rootes empire appears to have been unhappy. Models were abandoned over the next few years while they tried to build a single brand from the best models of each of the company's components. For management, "best" typically meant "cheapest to produce," which was at odds with the former higher-quality Rootes philosophy. Brand loyalty began to erode, and was greatly damaged when they decided to drop former marques and start calling everything a Chrysler. The Tiger was dropped in 1967 after an abortive attempt to fit it with a Chrysler engine, and the Hillman Imp–derived Stiletto disappeared in 1972.

The last Sunbeam produced was the "Rootes Arrow" series Alpine/Rapier fastback (1967–76), after which Chrysler, who had purchased Rootes, disbanded the marque. The Hillman (by now Chrysler) Hunter, on which they were based, soldiered on until 1978.

A Hillman Avenger-derived hatchback, the Chrysler Sunbeam, maintained the Sunbeam name, as a model rather than a marque, from 1977. Following the takeover of Chrysler Europe by PSA Group, the model was branded as the Talbot Sunbeam from 1979 through to its discontinuation in 1981. The Sunbeam name has not been used on a production car since then.

Barlby Road Kensington London

1936–1937 Sunbeam 30 prototypes

1936–1938 Talbot Ten

1938–1946 Sunbeam-Talbot Ten

1939–1946 Sunbeam-Talbot Two Litre

1938–1940 Sunbeam-Talbot Three Litre

1939–1940 Sunbeam-Talbot Four Litre

Ryton-on-Dunsmore

Sunbeam-Talbot

1946–1948 Sunbeam-Talbot Ten

1946–1948 Sunbeam-Talbot Two Litre

1948–1950 Sunbeam-Talbot 80

1948–1954 Sunbeam-Talbot 90 Marks I, II & IIA

1954–1957 Sunbeam 90 Mark III

Sunbeam

1953–1955 Sunbeam Alpine Mark I,III

1955–1967 Sunbeam Rapier Series I, II, III, IIIA, IV & V

1959–1968 Sunbeam Alpine Series I, II, III, III, IV & V

1964–1967 Sunbeam Tiger

1967–1970 Sunbeam Rapier Fastback & Sunbeam Alpine Fastback

Ryton-on-Dunsmore export-only

Sunbeam Minx

Sunbeam Vogue/Sunbeam Arrow

Sunbeam Funwagon/Sunbeam Highwayman

Linwood

1966–1976 Sunbeam Imp Sport

1967–1972 Sunbeam Stiletto

1970–1976 Sunbeam Rapier Fastback & Sunbeam Alpine Fastback

1977–1979 Chrysler Sunbeam (model name only)

1979–1981 Talbot Sunbeam (model name only)

Stoke

1982–1982 Sunbeam Lotus-Horizon (One-off prototype rally car)

Milan, Italy

1963–1964 Sunbeam Venezia body by Carrozzeria Touring: only 145 produced