5k WW: 1963 Sunbeam Alpine – Wasteland Wednesday

Welcome to the second installment of Wasteland Wednesday – where we feature cars abandoned to the elements, disassembled by wack-jobs or pre-aged to look not out of place after the apocalypse!  The BMW 2000CS featured earlier today was clearly a wasteland entry, and we continue with a slightly better looking 1963 Sunbeam Alpine located in San Mateo, CA, currently bidding on ebay for $1392 with 4 days to go and no reserve.

The Sunbeam Alpine is probably better known by its Shelby cousin – the Sunbeam Tiger (an Alpine with a V8).  But the Alpine is a simple 2+2 (the Series III Alpine released mid year 1963 had a small rear seat in the hardtop models where the soft-top would stow in the convertible version) British roadster from the Rootes Group with classic 50’s styling cues (tail fins!) and athletic sports car aspirations.

This series III Alpine is powered by a Hillman built 1.6 liter inline-4 cylinder engine putting out 77 horsepower and mated to a 4 speed manual transmission.  Even with a curb weight just under 2200 lbs the performance is on par with a modern trash truck, 0-60 mph takes 10-13 seconds to achieve depending on who measured it.

The inside of this Alpine needs a lot of work – full restoration of seats, carpet, dash, etc is needed.  But the car does run and drive – so its not a total basket case!

According to DT’s Research and Analysis Team (RAT!), the Alpine wears 1981 issue California blue plates, so you can assume its been in a dry  & salt free environment for the past 30 years, but a thorough inspection of the undercarriage for malignant cancer is imperative.  This is a car we could see buying – doing some de-skuz to the interior and fixing to drive around as an un-restored classic.  Or maybe drop in a V8…

See another cheap classic for sale?  email us here:  tips@dailyturismo.com