Jerome's Sunbeam Pages
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æ Received: from tibalt.supernet.ab.ca [198.161.21.5] by in5.ibm.net id 875595901.42354-1 ; Tue, 30 Sep 1997 05:05:01 +0000
Subject: 1/1 movies.txt
From: alpine!tjhiggin@tibalt.supernet.ab.ca (Mystic Rhythms Server)
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 97 0:04:47 CDT
To: jerome@supernet.ab.ca
BEGIN ---- movies.txt ---- Part 1 of 1 ---- (LIMIT=100000 bytes)
ALPINES ON THE SILVER SCREEN
By Rex Funk
How many car marques can lay claim to starring in two academy award
winning movies as well as launching a highly successful genre of action
movies? Sunbeam Alpines have conveyed such superstars as Grace Kelly,
Cary Grant, Liz Taylor, Sean Connery, and Arnold Schwartzenegger.
Hollywood was seldom kind to its Alpine car-stars, however, and they often
became fodder for spectacular crash scenes.
To Catch a Thief, 1955. This Alfred Hitchcock suspense yarn featured Cary
Grant as an ex jewel thief trying to protect his honor and stay out of
jail by catching a thief whose jobs mimic his style. Grace Kelly is the
American femme fatale who drives a blue Sunbeam Talbot Alpine fast enough
to give Grant sweaty palms. Set in the beautiful French Riviera, the
movie won an Academy Award for Cinematography. There are great shots of
the car in action, complete with squealing tires and nice sports- car
sounds, and the viewer gets a feel for how these cars could maneuver on
twisty mountain roads such as found on the Alpine and Monte Carlo Rallys.
Kelly and Grant are well matched, and the lively dialog and plot make this
an entertaining suspense/mystery tale with a generous dose of romance.
The sleek blue Alpine adds a touch of class to the movie, and there are
good exterior and interior views of the car, which appears to survive the
movie.
Butterfield 8, 1960. Liz Taylor won a "Best Actress" Oscar for her role
as a high-priced call girl who is pursued by Lawrence Harvey, a married
man. She drives a red Series I high fin Sunbeam Alpine with wire wheels
and a hard top. This is a dreary little melodrama that is tedious in most
spots. The Alpine meets with a bad end in a chase scene when Taylor runs
out of road and plunges off an elevated highway section into a rock
quarry. I was saddest about the car. Taylor's character is forgettable,
and it is said that she was a sentimental favorite for the Oscar that
year, having narrowly missed in previous years.
Doctor No, 1963. This is the first James Bond movie featuring Sean
Connery. As a kickoff to the very successful series of 007 movies, it's
a little rough in spots. Connery is mounted in a Series II "high fin"
Alpine for his debut as Bond. There is a chase scene on a winding dirt
road in Jamaica followed by the crash of the Alpine. . . off a cliff.
Hollywood sure likes to trash these cars. Jack Lord and Ursula Andress
round out the cast, and Connery even has a brief, but embarrassing, vocal
number.
Commando, 1986. Arnold Schwartzenegger and Rae Dawn Chong star in this
adventure flick in which Arnold's 11 year-old movie daughter is kidnapped
like a good Austrian name), goes on a violent murder and mayhem spree to
get her back, and one of the casualties is Chong's Series V Alpine. Arnie
rips the seat out and runs the car into a tree (at least it's not off a
cliff- - - we're making progress). Chong, of course, forgives him for
trashing her car, and joins him in getting his little girl back. There
must be over 100 bad guys who bite the dust in this flick, and we learn
that you don't mess around with the likes of a one man army like John
Matrix -- Boy Howdy!
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From: William McCormack <mccormac@qal.berkeley.edu>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 1995 23:03:20 -0700
To: alpines@autox.team.net
Subject: Movie Alpines
I've been trying to learn more about the Alpine in the movie
"Dr. No". During my last two Sundays, my wife and I have
been visiting cafe/bookstores which have been amenable to
a little research. I've come up with a few bits of information.
Question: Why did the producers choose an Alpine for the
movie?
Answer: Ian Fleming chose an Alpine in the book. The book
was published in 1958 and describes Bond being picked up by
a Jamaican contact named Quarrel in a black Talbot-style
Alpine. In the book, the Alpine belongs to a British
secret service agent named Stangways who, along with his
female assistant, are gunned down at the beginning of the
story. The chase shown in the film never happens.
Instead, Bond has a double drive the car from Kingston
to the north side of the island. Bond later learns that
the Alpine crashes and its occupants are killed.
Question: Are the directions Bond is given in the movie
real Jamaican roads? If you remember from the movie list,
she tells Bond to leave Kingston by the Port Royal road,
then take the Windward Road, turn left at the cement
factory, drive two miles up the mountains, and then
continue on to Magenta Road.
Answer: While there is no Port Royal Road, there is a
road leading from Port Royal which Bond might have taken.
There is also a Port Royal St. in Kingston, although this
is a minor city street. The Windward road, on the other
hand, is real. It leads east out of Kingston and follows
the coast -- just as is shown in the film. And Bond
turning left and heading up the hills is more or less
correct, even though none of the travel guides and maps
I looked at show a suitable road. Turning left would
take Bond up into the Blue Mountains. I suspect that the
film makers made up the final directions to the house.
Magenta road does not seem to exist. Maybe they borrowed
scenery from the north side of the island near Ocho Rios,
the area that they used for some of the Crab Keys scenes.
(Remember the water falls on Crab Keys where Ursula
Andress appears? Those fall are called Dunn Falls and
are very near Ocho Rios).
Question: Where did the producers get their Alpine?
Guess: They rented it from a Sunbeam dealer in Kingston.
The population of Jamaica during the 1950's was about
1.2 million. There must have been quite a few dealers in
Kingston. In one of the tour guides I looked at, it showed
a front page of the Kingston newspaper from 1962 which
featured a large Vauxhil (sp) ad. Fleming, who lived on
Jamaica during the winters for 18 years, probably chose
a Sunbeam because he had seen them. Sunbeam clearly
exported Alpines to the Carribean -- if you remember from
the appendicies in Chris McGovern's Alpine book, he
mentions a "small bore engine for Bermuda" that Sunbeam
used to make. Given that Jamaica is the third largest
island in the Carribean, it doesn't seem unreasonable that
Sunbeam exported Alpines to at least a couple of the
islands. And the Alpine shown in the movie is a right
hand drive vehicle, which means that the producers
didn't go to the U.S. to import their car.
So why would they have rented an Alpine instead of buying
one? If you remember, the Alpine in the chase scene was
not damaged and was shown mainly in that one afternoon
scene. Also bear in mind that this was the first Bond
film, and producers were under budget constraints.
So is the car alive today? How could we find out?
If the car was rented, then maybe the license plate shown
in the movie was legit. Also, if the car did come from
a Kingston dealer, it should be possible to to find out
something about that dealer by looking at old ads
(assuming that such things can still be found on
microfiched newspapers).
Maybe one or more of the car clubs has a member or two
from Jamaica or Bermuda who might know something about
Carribean Sunbeams ...
Cheers,
Bill McCormack
B9205690
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From: William McCormack <mccormac@QAL.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 1995 22:47:40 -0700
To: alpines@autox.team.net
Subject: Movie Alpines
Some details from "Dr. No" ...
Released 1962
Shows James Bond driving a blue Series II Alpine with white-walled,
wire-rimmed wheels. Right hand drive. License plate: either
Z 8301 or possibly 3Z 8301 (although it appears to to be the former).
The film takes place in Be. Our Man James drives up a road which
takes him to a tryst. These are the directions he was given:
"You leave the Port Royal Road out of Kingston ... then along the
Windward Road until you get to the cement factory. Then you turn left
Follow the road up the hill, down the other side, and two miles further
on, on the left: Magenta Drive 2171."
I wonder if these directions would really take you anywhere ...
I also wonder what happened to Bond's Alpine ...
Bill McCormack
B9205690
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Date: Wed, 11 Oct 95 08:54:06 -0700
From: Daniel Levitin <levitin@cogsci.uoregon.edu>
To: alpines@autox.team.net
Subject: (1) 5 speed Toyota transmission for Alpines; (2) Text of James McMurty song about Sunbeams
(1) I have decided for convenience and economics that I would
like to add an overdrive to my 1966 Series V by going the Toyota
route that Bill Lewis mentioned in a recent post. I contacted the
guy in Australia who is organizing this, and I have some more
information to pass on for those who are interested. They need five
people to do this, and I think we're only one or two people short.
a) For $500 Australian (approx. $380 U.S.) you get a new
bellhousing, speedometer cable, spigot bering, clutch plate actuating
arm and bearing, to put a Toytoa Steel Case 5-speed into an Alpine.
b) For another $380 U.S. they'll sell you a reconditioned
Toyota gearbox and yoke, or you can get your own.
c) They say you have to get a tail shaft made (Approx. $75
US)
d) The gear stick will come out of the original hole.
e) The gear ratios of the Toyota come very close:
They say that the original ratios for a Series V are
4th 1:1 3rd 1.392:1 2nd 2.141:1 1st 3.35:1 O/D .803:1
There are two types of Toy boxes they can supply, and they
differ only in their 1st gear ratios:
4th 1:1 3rd 1.390:1 2nd 2.040:1 1st 3.28:1 O/D .85:1
4th 1:1 3rd 1.390:1 2nd 2.040:1 1st 3.52:1 O/D .85:1
f) They need five people to do part "a" (the supplementary
parts) in order to proceed. So far we have three or four: Me (Dan
Levitin), Rick from Sunbeam Specialties, and Peter Thompson, the
fellow in Australia. If Bill Lewis is interested, that makes four.
If you are interested, let me or Rick (408-371-1642) know
soon!
(2) I found the James McMurtry song that mentions a Sunbeam. It is
on the album "Where'd You Hide The Body", Columbia 66188, 1995. The
song is "Fuller Brush Man". I'm attaching the first two verses and
the last (they're the only ones that mention our favorite car):
When I was maybe three or four
the Fuller Brush man would knock at the door
he'd always tell me "boy you're gonna miss the fun
time you're old enough the honky tonks will all be gone"
mama had no sense with cars
she drove a Sunbeam and she drove it hard
it left her stranded, time and again
it didn't matter, you could do that then
....
you don't too often see a Sunbeam anymore
and you never seea Fuller Brush man or a dinoaur
the voice of reason rules with an iron fist
please forgive me if I'm not prepared to handle this
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Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 14:31:03 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jon R Humphrey <jh5r+@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: alpines@autox.team.net (Alpines),
tjhiggin@alpine.b17a.ingr.com (T.J. Higgins)
Subject: Re: Alpines (fwd)
In case nobody ever saw it before, but I'm sure it's common knowledge.
I was looking through the gardeners storage room today and laying on a
barrel was an old copy of Playboy "August 1965" tha's pretty old.
And what to my wandering eye did appear but a beautiful shot of Playmate
of the year Jo Collins, now Joan Collins sitting on her Playmate Pink
Sunbeam Tiger.
Lookin good, Both Joanie and the Tiger.
Brought back other memories in that was the August I started college.
Oh sweet memories
Jon
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From: DSand95510@aol.com
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 03:01:45 -0500 (EST)
To: tigers@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Sunbeam Tiger and Maxwell Smart
In a message dated 97-02-13 21:16:51 EST, av342@lafn.org (Steven Laifman)
writes:
>As I remember it, Maxwell drove two different cars, depending upon the
>season. The first was a Karmann-Ghia VW, and the next was the Tiger......
Actually, the car first used in the opening sequence was a Ferrari (pilot
episode), followed by the Tiger, then the Karmann Ghia, and finally the Opel
GT.
An Alpine V was used for almost all of the shots during the show itself
("Bring in the stunt car!!"), even after the Tiger had been replaced by the
Karmann-Ghia in the opening. During the last season, Max drove a white
Mustang convertible once or twice.
Dick Sanders
{ Received: from disco.imag.net [204.244.225.25] by in4.ibm.net id 905130757.91054-1 ; Mon, 07 Sep 1998 01:12:37 +0000
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 21:11:25 -0400
From: Tom Yang <TYang@compuserve.com>
Subject: Re: Thanks, and
To: "(unknown)" <ALPINES@autox.team.net>
<Also, I have an Alpine S V and I just put new P165/80 radials on the rim=
s.
They are skinny little things, but the handling vs the old Sears belted
tires
is already amazing. What's the widest I could have gone and not shred the=
tires with the fender wells?>
When I had stock steel Alpine wheels, I had 185 75 13s on my car, but now=
with 14inch Minilites, I squeezed 205 60 14s. They stick out a little bit=
in the front, and I had to roll the fender lips so no rubbing would occur=
=2E
I don't think you can get much wider than that without flairing the
fenders.
<One last question. What's NOS mean? I read it in lots of ads, etc. And
what
are LAT wheels. Sorry for being such an idiot, but I'm new at this Brit c=
ar
thing and am trapped in the Midwest (Illinois).>
NOS New Old Stock: Parts that were originally made for your car, and may
have sat on a shelf in a box for all these years waiting for you to spend=
all too much money to put on your car!
LAT Los Angeles Tiger Option: An option list you could order from when yo=
u
bought your Tiger, special wheels being one of them.
Hope this helps.
Tom
_ Received: from disco.imag.net [204.244.225.25] by in7.ibm.net id 912018525.497862-1 ; Wed, 25 Nov 1998 18:28:45 +0000
From: "Christie, Scott E. (CAP, GEFA)" <Scott.Christie@gecapital.com>
To: "'jerome@supernet.ab.ca'" <jerome@supernet.ab.ca>, alpines@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: Rootes' ad agency
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 13:31:37 -0500
The firm handling the American side for Rootes was Mogul, Williams, &
Saylor; 625 Madison Avenue, New York, NY. The account manager was Mr.
Harrry Mazza. So far I have not been able to track down what happened to
this now-defunct firm's files, but I'm working on it! It also appears that
Mr. Mazza has disappeared into the mists of time.
Scott Christie
Series 3 Alpine Registry
USA
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jerome@supernet.ab.ca [SMTP:jerome@supernet.ab.ca]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 1998 12:25 PM
> To: alpines@autox.team.net
> Subject: Rootes' ad agency
>
> I was admiring a bunch of Rootes advertising, printed and on-line, and
> with the consistent style across most of the '60s material I was
> wondering what agency was responsible.
>
> --
>
> - J e r o m e Y u z y k | jerome@supernet.ab.ca -
> - BRIDGE Scientific Services | www.tgx.com/bridge -
> - Sunbeam Alpine Series II #9118636 | www.tgx.com/bridge/sunbeam -
> - I'm going to SUNI III... Are You? | www.newsource.net/suni3 -
} Received: from superman.imag.net [207.200.148.6] by in2.ibm.net id 928942111.96540-1 ; Wed, 09 Jun 1999 15:28:31 +0000
Wed, 9 Jun 1999 09:28:10 -0600 (MDT)
From: "Christie, Scott" <scott@generalife.com>
To: "'Alpine Subscribers'" <alpines@autox.team.net>
Subject: In Like Flynn
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1999 10:24:58 -0500
charset="iso-8859-1"
Fellow 'Piners -
I watched a horrible film last night on AMC - "In Like Flynn" with James
Coburn. I think it was trying to capture some of the success of the Bond
films in the 60's. I watched it strictly for the cars (okay, the babes
weren't too bad either).
Anyway, if you can stomach the first hour, there is a scene with a red
Series I in a parking lot full of other British sports cars at a drive-in.
For those of you who have seen this awful movie, the drive-in is actually
within the pleasure dome, fully stocked with "pleasure units" (woman
programmed to give pleasure - no kidding) Coburn rescues one of his
girlfriends who is making out in the Alpine with one of the bad guys.
They're going at it pretty good, which proves there's plenty of room for
that sort of thing in an Alpine!
Just another Alpine spotting to be added to the list.
Scott Christie
ª Received: from ns3.imag.net [207.200.148.6] by in1.ibm.net id 929996464.129180-1 ; Mon, 21 Jun 1999 20:21:04 +0000
Mon, 21 Jun 1999 14:22:21 -0600 (MDT)
From: "Silverstein, Steve" <Steve_Silverstein@bose.com>
To: "'alpines@autox.team.net'" <alpines@autox.team.net>
Subject: Works Driver by Frostick
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 16:21:16 -0400
I ran across a book that may be of interest to Sunbeam owners it's by
Micheal Frostick, "Works Driver". It covers the Rootes group racing team
in the 50's + 60's. The book I bought is a new reprint of the original.
I guess it is back in publication. If you can't find it through Amazon, I
bought this copy from Art Spindler (deals in used books).
Steve Silverstein
‹
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Tue, 19 Oct 1999 17:05:45 -0600 (MDT)
From: OldeAlp@aol.com
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 19:04:52 EDT
Subject: Talbot Crest update
To: alpines@autox.team.net, tigers@autox.team.net
I believe it was a couple of years ago that we had a discussion on the dog
vs. lion portrayal in the Sunbeam motif. Today I received a response to my
post from way back then that shines some new light on the matter:
<<
There is no argument! You are close but no banana!
The insignia used on the Talbot cars is actually over 500 years old and is
still the heraldic crest of the Earls Of Shrewsbury who are the senior
members of the Talbot family. Their title (and the crest) comes from one of
England's greatest soldiers John Talbot the 1st Earl of Shrewsbury who
fought against Joan of Arc (amongst others).
The animal on top of the Earl's cap (i.e. worn under his helmet) is
heraldically described as "a lion statant with tail extended". The Talbot
hounds were the traditional supporters (i.e. either side of the coat of
arms)and were also on the badge worn by his soldiers/retainers.
The later Earl was involved in the original Talbot company and it took his
family name (I have a Spy print of him driving an early model Talbot with
the title "Cabs").
If further Talbot information is required please see the Talbot Research
Organisation web-site:-
http://www.kiamara.demon.co.uk/trolocat.html
All the best:
Richard D. B. Talbot C.D.
Lt-Col (Ret'd)
Phil asks about the insignia - volumes have been written about what it
really is and the argument continues. The following summarizes what I've
been able to deduce over the years.
There has been a lot of debate about what we lovingly call the "Talbot"
logo. Most of the discussion has been about the animal depicted in the
design. Is it a lion or a dog?
My copy of the Georges Roesch biography is presently out on loan, but as I
recall, the design was adapted from the crest of the Earl of Shrewsbury who
was the money behind the Talbot automobile in its British production. The
original family crest depicted a Talbot hound, which was a sporting breed
used by nobility - and which gave the name to the car. When the Rootes
Brothers joined Talbot and Sunbeam, they maintained the logo from the
Talbot. The animal gradually evolved from looking like a sleek hound to the
lionlike creature most of us are familiar with (you know how artists have to
keep tampering).
The Talbot hound was dropped from the British Kennel Club breed recognition
in the early 1900s when none had been registered for many years, and are now
thought to be extinct as an identifiable breed.
"Ole"
Index Accessories Culture Diagnose Docs Howto Id Models Parts-Alt Performance Rebuild Rebuild-Body Rebuild-Electrical Rebuild-Engine Rebuild-Interior Rebuild-Tranny Rebuild-Underside Shoptools Sources Specs