I went to the British car show this weekend here in Southern California.
There were a few hundred beautiful cars, but only two Sunbeams, mine and
an unrestored worn Tiger. The other Tigers in the area were off at the LA
Fairgrounds drag racing. I got plenty of compliments from people on my
car, either for the paint/restoration job or the Webers. But, as usual, a
large majority of people took one look at my car then went on to show
their friend the V-8 shoved in the Tiger -- despite its ragged "unloved"
condition. It's too bad that there were not more Alpines out there -- as
AMEX knows, its nice to be a "member" of a group. I found the MG TC/TD
people the nicest to talk to with the Lotus and MGB people at the other
end of the scale. To this day, I do not understand what MGB people think
is so special about their cars. And, the Lotus people, they figure
that they have justification to be snobby -- but then I would never
turn down an Elan or 7. Jay Leno even showed up in an old Bugatti (the
coupe with the swooping fenders, aero doors, and external rivets around
the joints and seems). He did acknowledge that it was not an English
car. Yet, it still drew the largest crowd even before people realized
who owned it. In the end, I felt glad to be leaving in my car, and proud
of all the work I know I did, as opposed to paid someone else to do. But,
to this day, I still do not understand why the Alpine is not more widely
regarded. My guess is that (1) for those people who need cubic inches, it
is the kid brother of the Tiger, (2) MGB's are so cheap and plentiful that
anyone can buy them, and/or (3) its performance figures, cubic inches or
otherwise, were not up to other cars of the day. Oh well, let them think
we are eating bread when we are really eating cake!
Thank you Mr. Howe.
Jay Laifman
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