1979, A Good Year

(Written on 1/16/2022)

In 1979 I was 17, and like many young people loved sports cars. There was something about a small two seat convertible that screamed "let's have some fun". My older sister had an MGB that my father had helped her restore. If I could have had any car, it would have been a Triumph Spitfire. I just loved the look of the car. But I really didn't have the money to buy a decent car, so I read the used car classified ads religiously hoping in vain for a miracle.

My dream Spitfire didn't show up, but a great deal came along on a Sunbeam Alpine. Actually it was two Sunbeam Alpines, a 1964 in bad condition and a 63 in worse. I had never heard of a Sunbeam Alpine, but the ad said that it was a British convertible sports car, and the price was right. Now my sister's MGB had met an untimely death when the wiring harness shorted out and the car burned up in a parking lot. So when I showed the ad to my father and asked him to look at the Sunbeams with me, he was less than enthusiastic. My sincere apology to citizens of the UK, and British car lovers everywhere, but I believe his exact words were, "Why do you want a Limey piece of junk". It's OK. I'm sure that somewhere in the UK in the 1970s a teenager wanted a Mustang, and his WW2 generation father no doubt said, "Why do you want that overrated Yankee garbage". 😉

Now in addition to sharing a name, my father and I also shared a love of all things mechanical. God bless him, because he indulged me, and I wouldn't have had a prayer of success without him. He agreed that we could make one running car from the two, and rented a box truck to transport & tow my prizes home. He taught me engine rebuilding and body work. The JC Whitney parts catalog became my best friend. Dad spray painted the Alpine fire engine red. I mean that literally, as he worked for Mack Trucks and got red paint used for fire engines that was past expiration. The great part was he didn't rebuild the car for me. Other than the spray painting, he showed me how, and had me do it. My uncle John, who was an upholsterer, completely redid the seats for me. They had to be the nicest seats to ever grace a Sunbeam Alpine. I pretty much did the rest of the interior myself.

The car was beautiful, fun, and thank God I had a hard working guardian angel. It had no seatbelts. I loved going stupid fast over a short, but high, bridge which would launch the car. The wheels would be a foot off the ground, and my butt would be a foot off the driver's seat.

Then there was the time I raced someone and found out that my Alpine had a top speed of 105 mph. Now somewhere around 100 the convertible top velcro above the driver and passenger windows pops off and the wind gets pretty loud. But not as loud as the sound of a broken connecting rod going through the side of an Alpine's engine block. Fortunately I had a second engine block on hand. After installing the second rebuilt engine I took the Alpine just around the block to make sure everything was working. While turning from a stop the steering wheel simply spun around and around without having any effect. The 64 Alpine used a recirculating-ball steering gear. A metal cup holds a steel ball in a worm gear. Mine had worn to the point where the ball popped out of the cup and the steering wheel had become a decorative accent. 😮 I'm fairly sure that when I got married my guardian angel took a much deserved early retirement.

Not every adventure in the Alpine was life threatening. Some were merely humbling. It had dual downdraft zenith carburetors that dumped fuel into the four cylinder engine as fast as it would take it. The throttle linkage bar however had the nasty habit of popping off the carbs whenever I was too exuberant with the gas pedal. Out on a date one evening the linkage of course came off. Which wouldn't have been too humiliating except that when I pulled the bonnet release the cable broke. Unable to open the hood and pop the linkage back on, I searched for the route to take the young lady home with the fewest hills, as I was now driving in 1st gear engine stuck at idle. 😒

Unfortunately I have no photos of my Alpine (those primitive pre-cellphone days), but it looked pretty much like this.