Date:         Sat, 5 Feb 2000 09:15:30 -0000
Reply-To:     David Clark <davidclark@HUMBERONIA.FREESERVE.CO.UK>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Clark <davidclark@HUMBERONIA.FREESERVE.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: Alpine/F - very little VW content
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

 Alistair
 You are right the Rootes Group of the sixties comprised of a lot of Great
 British Motoring names:
 Humber
 Hillman
 Sunbeam
 Singer
 Commer
 SunbeamTalbot
 Karrier
 The Group was acquired by Chrysler in 1968 and the Rootes name disappeared
 in 1970 to become the short lived Chrysler UK Ltd, before being sold to
 Peugeot-Talbot in 1978.

 During Rootes experimentation years a lot of large American engines found
 there way into vehicles.
 The Ford V8 260cc into the Sunbean Alpine to become the Tiger and Chrysler
 V8 into the Humber Super Snipe/Imperial - I have some interesting copies of
 internal Rootes memos!

  Now the VW content - William Rootes (Chairman) turned down the offer to
 build the VW Beetle in the UK after WW2, after an assessment he said "The
 German Peoples Car was too outdated and too basic to be competitive and
 there was no point in the Government going ahead with the idea".  Of course
 the rest is history as they say - the only saving grace is that Henry Ford
 came to a similar conclusion!

 End of history lesson.
David Clark

 p.s the parts situation is worse now!!!!

 1985 Transporter VHT
 1960 Humber Super Snipe Estate (17 years owned)
 www.humberonia.freeserve.co.uk
 1988 Fiat Uno (wifes)

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: David Beierl <dbeierl@IBM.NET>
> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
> Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2000 5:20 PM
> Subject: Re: Alpine/F
>
>
> > At 09:01 AM 1/29/2000 -0800, Alistair Bell wrote:
> > >mmm, wasn't the Sunbeam was part of the Rootes group (along with Singer
> and
> > >Hillman - Dave Clark where are you?) and was aquired by C******r in the
> > >60's/70's?
> >
> > Yup.  I got my parts from Chrysler.  You can bet I was real popular with
> > the good-ol-boys in the parts department in Pensacola...usually took 3
> > weeks to a month to get stuff.
> >
> > d
> > David Beierl - Providence, RI
> >   http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
> > '84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
> > '85 GL "Poor Relation"
> >
>