Shopping for a Sunbeam-Talbot

Sir,

I have read with very great interest your articles and readers’ letters recently on shopping for Rovers, Daimler’s, Alvis, etc. May I be permitted to add another to this list, that of the Sunbeam and Sunbeam-Talbots—read on, Mr. Boddy, don’t throw this letter away yet—of the 1950-56 period.

I have run a Sunbeam-Talbot and more recently an Alpine variant for the past six years and I have yet to find a better balanced car. Sunbeam-Talbots won several international rallies and attracted such drivers as Moss, Hawthorn and Sheila Van Damm and proved that their performance and roadholding were superior to many cars twice the price.

And yet the car is docile when required; somebody actually designed seats with the comfort and requirements of the driver in mind (not cost!) and such items as sunroof were standard.

I would defy anyone to produce a better all round motor car and bearing in mind that a really nice Mark III saloon can be purchased today for £200 or thereabouts what better value is there? The Editor might disagree with me for it was, I believe, he who once described them as “lorries”. But then the Editor never forgave Rootes for taking over the Sunbeam and Talbot companies and transferred his allegiance to a German make whose name eludes me at present. (Initials actually.—ED)

Before I close, I now own the works experimental Alpine, reg. no. MUK 969; and am interested in finding out more of its history: Rootes records are vague—can anybody help?

Plymouth.
G. J. Wilson.