Description
Kelham Hall | Newark, Nottinghamshire
Viewing: Tues 16th June from 12pm
Auction: Wed 17th June from 9am
Location: Main Street, Newark, Nottinghamshire NG23 5QX
1955 Sunbeam Alpine III Ex-Works Rally Car
Stirling Moss's planned Alpine Rally car
Estimate
£50, 000 - £60, 000
Registration No: RHP 704
Chassis No: A3501912HR00D
MOT: Exempt
Sunbeam's Works entry for the 1955 Alpine Rally (Coupe des Alpes) to be driven by Stirling Moss
One of just six team cars produced for the rally
Specification includes a tuning kit, dual fuel lines, a 25-gallon petrol tank, driver and navigator knee pads, vacuum flasks, wing ventilations, and an aluminium boot lid
Fully restored during the previous ownership (1992-2010)
Owned since 2010 by a former Rootes franchisee and main agent, who took up collecting in more recent years
Though developed from the Sunbeam-Talbot 90, the Alpine was the first Rootes Group product to wear just the Sunbeam badge. The design was inspired by the Bournemouth-based Sunbeam-Talbot dealer George Hartwell and finalised by Raymond Loewy. Norman Garrad of Rootes's competition department was supposedly responsible for the name, which was in honour of the company's numerous successes on the Alpine Rally. The newcomer found fame at the hands of Works drivers Stirling Moss and Sheila Van Damm and starred in To Catch A Thief, featuring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. The Alpine bodies were hand-made by Thrupp & Maberly and the cars were powered by a mildly-tuned version of the 2, 267cc four-cylinder engine from the Sunbeam-Talbot 90, which gave around 80bhp at 4200rpm. The Alpine was manufactured from 1953 to 1955, during which time an estimated 1, 582 were produced, of which relatively few remain—possibly no more than 200.
Having risen to prominence in Formula Three and already made a breakthrough into sports cars, the 22-year-old Stirling Moss was a fast-rising star when he was invited to drive for the Rootes Competition Department in the 1952 Monte Carlo Rally. Despite losing a gear, Moss managed to conceal the fact from scrutineers (who would otherwise have disqualified him) and drove his Sunbeam-Talbot 90 to second place, just beaten by Sydney Allard’s Allard P1. Later in ’52, he took a Sunbeam-Talbot to the Alpine Rally and won a Coupe des Alpes for an unpenalised run (his teammates George Murray-Frame and Mike Hawthorn achieved the same feat).
When the Sunbeam Alpine was launched in March, 1953, Moss and Rootes’s other star driver, Sheila Van Damm, were handed a stripped-down special which they took to Belgium’s Jabbeke highway, and drove it to a record speed of 120. 135mph. When the time came for the Alpine to prove itself in rallying, Moss naturally obliged. Seven Works Alpines were fielded in the 1954 Alpine Rally, with Moss achieving third in class and a Gold Cup for completing three unpenalised runs in a row, while Van Damm clinched the Ladies’ Award.
Even more success was anticipated in 1955. The 1954 Works Alpines were sold at the end of the year, and a brand-new team of six cars, registered ‘RHP 700’ to ‘RHP 705’, was assembled specially for the Coupe des Alpes that July. Sadly, it was not to be. The terrible Le Mans tragedy which claimed the lives Pierre Levegh and more than eighty spectators had occurred in June, and the French authorities responded by immediately banning all motorsport for the foreseeable future. The Alpine Rally did not take place, and the Sunbeam Alpine’s rallying career came to an untimely end, because in 1956 it would be supplanted by the new Sunbeam Rapier sports saloon.
The car offered for sale, ‘RHP 704’, is understood to be the sole survivor of the ‘RHP’ team and was to be driven by Stirling Moss. Several period photographs show it being prepared ahead of the cancelled rally. Motor Sport published a description of the six team cars in its July, 1955, issue: “The cars impress by being close to standard specification—they even have quite small cast-iron brake drums with normal finning. Special seats, giving better support and saving abouts 40lb., are fitted, the ignition coil is mounted horizontally on the near side directly in a cold-air duct, with a spare coil beside it, and twin Zenith petrol-filters are fitted. The instrument panels are devoid of rev.-counters. Experimental Dunlop tyres and a larger fuel tank placed just behind the seat are other 1955 improvements and bonnet straps will be used. The engines, with the 8. 0 to 1 compression-ratio of the Alpine Special, develop 90bhp and overdrive will be available in all the gears.”
A 2011 letter from the Sunbeam Talbot Alpine Register confirms 704’s assignment to Moss. As with all the other ‘RHP’ cars, 704 was sold without having seen any action. No further history is known until 1982, when it belonged to David and Sara Jane Bevan of Cheltenham. They sold it in 1992 to Colin Mumbray, who conducted a full restoration and sold it in 2010 to our vendor, a former Rootes franchisee turned main dealer, who in more recent years has made a hobby of collecting some of the most important surviving Rootes cars. It is offered for sale with assorted historical documents and an original owner’s handbook.
