One of the central figures in "The House of the Spirits" is Clara. She is the daughter of Severo and Nivea. In an early chapter Sevoro (a prosperous man) is the first in his town (in Chile?) to acquire a car, (probably in the 1920's or 30's.)
His car is a British made "Sunbeam". Oh boy! That name brought back memories of those British Car manufacturers which are no more.
In this blog I will concentrate on the companies which became part of the Rootes Group (more about that later). Here are some photo's.
SUNBEAM
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Sunbeam Volante 1934
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Sunbeam Rapier (really a Hillman with a different badge).
HUMBER |
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Humber Hawk 1963 (Blah)
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Humber Hawk 1953 YEAH!
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Humber Super Snipe 1953 YEAH
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| Humber Super Snipe 1961 Blah |
SINGER
No connection with the Singer Sewing Machine Company
Once the #3 in British Car manufacturers (after Austin and Morris).
An innovative Company
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Singer Airstream. An experiment with aerodynamic design
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| Singer Hunter 1956 |
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Singer Gazelle (in fact a Hillman Car with a Singer badge)
Talbot
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| A Talbot car with a Hillman design |
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Talbot Lago (could be a French not a British Talbot)
Hillman
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| Hillman Minx A car for respectable working people in the U.K., Ireland. India and Australia |
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Hilman Imp, and the end of a company.
The Hillman Company was persuaded (strong armed?) by the U.K. Govt. to open a factory in Linwood, Scotland.
This was to be the place where Hillman would manufacture their rival to the Morris Mini Minor, and the Austin 7. (known mostly as the original Minies).
The Imp with its aluminium rear engine was mostly a flop.
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What Sunbeam, Humber, Singer, Hillman and Talbot have in common is that they were all part of the Rootes Group.
William and Reginald Rootes were at first car dealers, They decided to enter the car manufacturing business and bit by bit they acquired Hillman, Humber, Singer, Talbot and Sunbeam alongside the truck manufactuers Commer and Karrier.
The Rootes group became #3 in the U.K. car and truck hierarchy.
But due to poor design and labour strikes the Hillman Imp did them in.
Chrysler of America, anxious to have a U.K. presence (as did Ford and General Motors) bought the Rootes Group.
Lee Iacocca thought that this was a dreadful and non profitable business decision.
He was right. In the end whatever was left of the Rootes Group was sold by Chrysler to Peugot and Renault.
Notwithstanding this: Brits, Irish, Indians and Australians of my generation have a soft spot for the Rootes Group and its many auto and lorry marques.
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The Talbot Lago was a French car - the company was owned by Tony Lago - hence the name. He went racing with them and all came with a Wilson pre-selector gearbox as Lago owned the rights to this. There was no association with the British Talbot business which had been part of an Anglo-French group known as Sunbeam Talbot Darraq. This became part of the Rootes Group of companies in the 1930s, hence the Sunbeam-Talbot marque that sold until Rootes dropped the Talbot name selling Sunbeams as you point out, based heavily on Hillman bodies. Rootes sold out to Chrysler Corporation who were trying to emulate General Motors and Ford by having European manufacturing. They also bought Simca in France. When Chrysler sold off their European operations they sold them to Peugeot Citroen of France who relaunched the UK end as Talbot. Thus to add to the inevitable confusion you got the Talbot Sunbeam which you illustrate, based on a cut down Hillman Avenger platform with either a Hillman Imp engine or the Rootes 1500cc OHV engine. Other Talbot models from The Chrysler era were rehashed Simcas like the Horizon - also sold as the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon in the USA.
ReplyDeleteChrysler is now part of Stellantis embracing Fiat, Peugeot, Citroen, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Ferrari, Maserati, Chrysler and Jeep.
It's complex, isn't it?