I finished reading most of the new Graham Robson book "Sunbeam Alpines and
Tigers." On the plus side, (1) it is a book about our Sunbeams, (2) it
does not give a disproportional amount of time to the Tiger, (3) it does
provide some information I was not aware of, (4) it has a handfull of
pictures I haven't seen before, and (5) it is not out of print yet like
McGovern's book. On the negative side, (1) it is pretty much a rehash of
information I've already read, (2) it made at least one claim about Tigers
which I thought was known to be false, and (3) it does not paint a very
pretty or glamorous picture of the cars, and if I were in the market for
one, after reading this, I would probably look for a different car.
Whereas, after reading the McGovern book, I liked the car that much better.
In particular, he reams the successes of competition Alpines and Tigers -
which may be true in the big events. But, McGovern focused on other race
venues too. He reams the sports car abilities of the Rootes company -
which also may be true considering that they most desparately wanted the
car to do the magic 100 mph, but simply could not do it. He reams the
amount of quality attention Rootes gave to developing the Alpine - more
than just getting more leg room - which also may be true at most car
companies (or most companies for that matter).
I'd probably still buy the book again simply because it exists.
Jay
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