Sometime ago, I exchanged e-mails with Chris McGovern about the original
design of the Alpine versus what actually resulted. I can't seem to
find it now. But the gist was: if one looks at the original model
(pictures are in Chris' book, The Classic Sunbeam), one can see that the
whole car was much more "raked" than as it resulted - not only were the
fins flowing back but so was the windshield and the other parts of the
car - sort of giving the impression of speed even at rest. This is in
stark contrast to the way the later upright "fin-impaired" Alpines and
Tigers came out. The windshield on the early Alpines was in fact angled
more steeply back - though still less than the original design. And, in
the later cars, the windshield was brought up more vertical because of
water leakage problems. However, the difference in angle was made to
appear more severe than it really was when they also added the small
triangular side windows/windwings.
Jay Laifman
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