Hello everyone,
I'm 26 years old and I live in Brisbane, Australia. I am a CPA, working for
a firm of public accountants. I graduated from Queensland University of
Technology in 1991. Mostly I work in tax, but I get my hands dirty on audit
and IT work now and again.
My Sunbeam habit is a hereditary one. My grandparents had a few Rootes cars
over the years but my father really kicked it off. He bought a Rapier IIIA
new back in '61 and used it a lot in club level motorsport. It was traded
in '65 on a Sunbeam Imp which he had highly tuned and again used in
motorsport.
He went Japanese for a while before buying his Rapier back in '74. It all
snowballed from there. For the last twenty years I don't think he has ever
had fewer than six Rootes cars at one time.
I kicked off with a two tone orange Hillman Hunter in 1988. Being a dumb
university student I thrashed the car but never managed to break it. It
taught me a bit about car control though :-) Eventually rust took hold and
it went to that great car yard in the sky.
In the meantime, I had acquired a Sunbeam Imp Sport and an Alpine IIIGT.
The Imp Sport is very rare in this part of the world. I finished restoring
it in 1992, painting it Midnight Blue, and I have since fitted a 930cc
block, hot cam, Monte Carlo springs, adjustable shocks and a Janspeed
exhaust system. I have no intention of ever selling this one.
We have a historic race meeting at Lakeside, the local circuit, every year.
I run the Imp in the regularity trials, where the winner is the driver who
puts in the most consistent lap times. It's less risky than real racing,
which suits me because I don't want to bend the car. At the last meet, a
911 overtook me at the end of the main straight. I closed right up on him
through the corner and he left the door open. I didn't have the guts to do
it, but I reckon the Imp could have taken him on the inside.
The Alpine is still under restoration. There isn't that much more to do,
but my other cars always seem to command the time and money. It has a
1725cc Hunter engine at present and is Triumph BRG in colour.
The rest of the fleet comprise a UK-built Chrysler Alpine (more Simca than
Rootes) and my daily driver, a Peugeot 505.
I am the editor of the Sunbeam Owners' Club of Queensland newsletter and
the Imp Club's "Australian Contact" .
Here's a stupid question. What does the L in LBC stand for? We don't use
this acronym in Australia.
Russell Maddock
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Sep 05 2000 - 09:31:08 CDT