If you folks will recall, I commented about how terrific I thought a
particular Harrington look alike was in the SAOC Horn from the Manx
Classic. I just had a call from Steve Smith, the guy who organized the
Manx Classic. He told me that the top was off of another production car,
but he was sworn to secrecy about what car it was from. The guy who did it
runs a body shop so did a lot of the work, which included metal work and
fabrication. That was about it for the call, he had someone at the door.
We weren't able to talk about his engine set up or how to get copies of the
picture of him driving his Alpine on two wheels. I'll have to write him a
letter.
As to fin design, in reading the Hobson Sunbeam Alpine and Tiger book, I
noticed something I had not noticed before. In the pictures of the early
designs, the pointy fins actually did not slope up but down. That is, if
you take a straight edge along the top of the door, you will note on the
SIV,V and Tiger that the rear fins slope down, basically as much as the
front fenders. I think the tip of the flat fin is about 1" lower than the
top of the door. On the SI-III production cars, the fin pips up about 1"
(on cars with lower springs in front, the fins appear to go up even more
because the car is sloping more). But, if you take that same straight edge
along the door of these early design models, the pointy fin model actually
goes down too.
Of course we will never know how or why. The book describes the design
process. Three designers seem to have done most of the work, one being
Howes. I hate to say it but I don't have the book here and I unfairly
don't remember the other two guys' names. I'll be sure to post their names
tomorrow. After the designers got to the end of each stage, the Rootes
family would come and take a look. Each person in the family would have to
suggest/require a change, even if it was hardly anything, they always had
to have their say, and the designers had to agree. So, I don't know if the
fins up or the fins down were Rootes family inspired or designer inspired.
It seems that much of their motivations were centered on what they thought
the American public wanted. The idea of the new sports car started in '57
when fins were in full force. So, I would suspect the family wanted the
fins up. They did say that the non-peaked rims were dropped in favor of
the peaked fins specifically because Billy Rootes opined that Americans
wanted them.
I'm also not sure that the pointy fins sloping down slightly would have
looked as good. It might have been a little droopy.
Cheerio.
Jay
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