Mark,
My appreciation for the Tiger as a unique piece of automotive development and a
fun car to drive started in '93 when I got a chance to drive a student's car at
our local race driving school. Started to look around, and all that seemed to be
available were expensive Tigers, and very few at that. Eventually (mid '94) some
local guy had to quickly dispose of his Alpine collection (advertised as Alpine
/ Tiger parts, of course...) , and I picked up his pet project, a Series V that
he had started (and aborted) several V-6 conversions on. The car was in bare
metal, and I got everything he had in terms of trim, finishing parts, a new
softop, carpet, etc. Then I started looking for other bits to do an Alger.
Currently, the Alpine shell is tilted on its side against the wall of my garage.
Beside it sits the Tiger I was able to buy last summer, that had been restored
by the previous owner (and the one before that, and...). The Alpine parts have
come in pretty handy a few times so far when I needed to replace a broken or
missing widget on the Tiger.
The reality is that it costs as much to build an Alger from parts (and it's way
more work to find all the pieces and do the body mods) as it does to restore a
Tiger. The only stigma that I can see attached to Algers is that a number of
them have been rebadged as Tigers, and subsequently registered as Tigers using
ID lifted from junked cars. This is fraud, and has resulted in several horror
stories that you can read about on Mark Olson's web site.
Building an Alger (or doing any car from the ground up) is a tremendously
rewarding process because you have to solve tons of problems in many different
areas of the car's design. Financially, the cost is larger than getting a Tiger
to start with.
Theo Smit
tsmit@novatel.ca
B382002705
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Radelow [SMTP:radelow@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 1999 11:10 PM
> To: tigers@autox.team.net
> Subject: Question Regarding Tigers/Algers
>
> Hi guys, Mark Radelow here. I have a question and I hope it doesn't
> make you guys all start hating me or something...Or start a huge flame
> war. But what is the general opinion on Alger's. The reason I ask is
> that after speaking with some of you it seems that maybe getting a Tiger
> in the next year or so might be a little premature. Aka, I don't want
> to spend all the money I have. Sooo...Considering I have three
> objectives:
>
> a.) To have a nice looking Alpine or Tiger
> b.) To have a V8 powered beast of a British car
> c.) To have a cool "different" autox car
>
> That maybe an Alger would be more in my budget. Now I would never
> consider turning an Alpine into a Tiger...But if I bought one that
> already has been I won't feel like such a loser. Don't get me wrong I
> generally don't agree with turning a car into something it's not, but it
> seems like it might be my only alternative (or, of course, not getting
> one at all). I still would like to get a REAL Tiger, and I will still
> consider it if I do find the right one. But it might not be of the most
> financial sense right now. So do Sunbeam owners generally HATE Alger
> owners or is it something exceptable. Considering I would tear the car
> apart to turn it into a autox car anyways it might be a smarter thing to
> do. Opinions? Comments? Lashings?
>
> Mark
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