1 week Ago By Alyn Edwards
Article content Brett Knelson was only in his uncle Jim’s V8-powered 1966 Sunbeam Tiger MK1A sports car once, and that was literally by accident. Brett was 13 years old when he broke his leg on Mayne Island and needed medical attention – quickly. With no hospital on the island, Brett was loaded into a seaplane and flown to Richmond.
His parents were out of town, so it was up to his mother’s youngest brother to pick him up and take him home from the hospital after his leg was set in a cast. The transportation was Uncle Jim’s Tiger. “I always thought it was a cool car but never thought about someday owning it,” Brett says in the driveway of his Fort Langley home which overlooks the Fraser River.
Jim Albrecht was one of 11 children raised in Mission, an hour east of Vancouver, where he would eventually become an excavating contractor. On June 12th, 1973, he paid $3,000 to RCMP member Ross Gulkison for the red Sunbeam Tiger sports car. It was equipped with a black removeable hard top, a black convertible top and a snap-on tonneau cover to protect the passenger compartment.
That must have been a great day for Jim because he loved driving the very fast Sunbeam Tiger so much that he would keep the car for the rest of his life. There were few cars in the Sixties that were more fun than the high-performance British sportscar powered by a Ford V8 engine coupled to a four-speed manual transmission. The Tiger was a derivative of the four-cylinder Sunbeam Alpine that the British Rootes Group put into production in 1959.
Lacking the power to be exported and marketed successfully in North America, Rootes approached Carroll Shelby to shoehorn the 260 cubic inch V8 engine used in the new Mustang into the Sunbeam’s small engine bay. The result was jaw-dropping performance for a reasonable price. Tiger production ran from 1964 through 1967.
Just over 7,000 Tigers were built before Chrysler took over the Rootes Group and didn’t have a suitable V8 engine to continue production. Brett Knelson didn’t know his uncle Jim wanted him to take over the restoration of his Tiger that he had started years before when he partially disassembled the car. “He knew I was a car guy but, in those days, I was more interested in supercars,” he says.
“I was really honoured when I found out the car had been willed to me and to have the opportunity to finish the restoration.” Brett had no idea what that journey would entail. He enlisted advice from Vancouver-area Tiger guru Gord Houghton who has built, restored and raced Tigers for decades.
The car was consigned to a restoration shop for complete disassembly, sandblasting and assessment. Sadly, the rust worm had done a lot more damage than expected. The car would need major surgery with the rust being cut out to be replaced by new panels.
The Tiger body is much more rigid than its Alpine cousin. Front and rear fenders hide strategically placed inside body panels that add rigidity so the extra torque from the V8 engine didn’t twist the unibody structure. The sandblasted body that had been completely stripped was mounted on a rotisserie so it could be rolled on its side to enable metalwork on both inside and outside panels.
The ‘nut and bolt’ restoration took 17 months to complete. “The cost was over double what I thought it was going to be but there was a lot more work than expected,” Brett says. The original colour of the Tiger was Carnival Red.
Brett wanted something with a little more life in it and chose a dark red metallic two-part base paint covered with four coats of clearcoat. The removeable hardtop is painted black, the way the Sunbeam Tiger was delivered new. “The colour is spectacular,” Brett says.
“It just lights up in the sunshine. I know Uncle Jim would be very proud to see his car restored to better than new condition, and his daughters who live in Nova Scotia were blown away by the photos I sent them. Hopefully they’ll get a ride in their dad’s beautiful Tiger one day.
” The Tiger is now considered a family heirloom to be enjoyed by the Knelson family and to be kept alongside the 1987 Buick Grand National that Brett purchased new. At six-foot-four inches tall, Brett won’t be using this car with the top on. “My wife and two daughters will drive the car,” he says.
“And it will remain with us as a tribute to Uncle Jim who loved his Tiger and made sure it would stay in the family.” Alyn Edwards is a classic car enthusiast and partner in a Vancouver-based public relations company. aedwards@peakco.
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