The other day I was talking with David about Los Angeles car culture; David seems to be getting a bit disillusioned with it, finding that too much of it is centered around money and status. And while I’ll absolutely admit that is a part of LA car culture, I think there’s so much more, and I happened to see a fantastic example of what I mean while I’ve been out here: a rally-prepped (or at least it has the look) Sunbeam Stiletto.
A Sunbeam Stiletto is rare today in the UK, its home country; it’s as rare as a horse with a good credit score here in America, and yet here sits one, just casually parked at the end of a driveway along the side of the road in Silverlake.
And that right there – something impossibly rare and unexpected and wonderful, just out there amongst the normie grayscale SUV traffic – that’s what makes LA car culture magical.
I lived in LA for about 20 years, and on that time I never got tired of this aspect of Los Angeles car culture. It seemed like there was at least one example of everything drivable in LA, and if you stuck around long enough and kept your eyes open, you’d see it. While I lived in LA I saw cars like Tatra T87s and 603s, multiple kinds of Lancias, GAZs and Volgas and Okas, all manner of Fiats and Alfas and Saabs and Checkers and Citroëns and Ramblers and AMCs and Bricklins and Morrises and even got to know some of the owners of these strange and exotic cars, and then became one of them.
These aren’t necessarily expensive cars, or status-cloying cars, either. Take this Stiletto, for example. These aren’t exactly expensive cars, and they’re such deep cuts that only really painfully hardcore car geeks are going to even know what the hell they’re looking at.
This one is extremely well outfitted, and I know that can’t be cheap, but that doesn’t mean this is some rich-guy toy; I think this is more a work of genuine passion and not a car purchased as an investment, or anything like that, a theory supported by the choice of window sticker:
Aside from just emptying wallets since 1967, the Sunbeam Stiletto was a pretty fascinating car. It was the sportier, coupé version of the Hillman Imp, one of the very few mass-produced rear-engined cars from the British Isles. The Imp was the Rootes Group’s response to the Suez oil crisis and the Mini, arriving at the same basic goals – a cheap, useful, small car – from the opposite direction, with the engine at the back.
The Imp had the UK’s first mass-produced car with an aluminum engine block and head, and that engine – designed by racing engine builders Coventry-Climax – was a real gem, with overhead cams and canted at 45° in the engine bay. The 875cc engine made 50 hp from the factory, though I wouldn’t be surprised if this one has some extra horses crammed in there.
The Stiletto was the Imp’s sportier sibling, and took the Corvair-inspired Imp design language and gave it a very raked fastback roofline, creating a really handsome little car with delightful proportions.
It’s clean and crisp, athletic-looking, and smaller than you’d guess, but not too small. In rally livery like the one here, it’s even more fun. I’m not exactly sure of the origin of the livery, but I have found at least two other Stilettos wearing almost the same paint in the UK; I think this was the paint scheme of the Rootes/Chrysler Dealer Team?
That’s a lot of muffler going on there, almost serving as a rear bumper. And, this Sunbeam seems to have a nearly sunbeam-lumens-level reverse lamp setup there as well, which must make for some effective hindsight in this car.
The Sunbeam logo is pretty strange, and this Stiletto has a nice big one to scrutinize. There’s a lion, with a crown hovering over him, riding on what looks like a… red hat of some kind?
Turns out that’s exactly what’s going on. The reason for this peculiar scene is because it all comes from part of the coat of arms of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The crest is described, in that peculiar heraldic language, as:
“On a chapeau gules, turned up ermine, a lion statant with the tail extended.”
And, yep, that chapeau sure is gules, and holy crap is that lion statant, am I right?
This is all because Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, the 20th Earl of Shrewsbury, was one of the backers of Clement-Talbot, who made Talbot cars, a company that would later buy Sunbeam, becoming Sunbeam-Talbot.
All of this just reminds me how wonderful the carscape of LA can be. It always manages to surprise and delight me.
Arizona car culture is/ was also cool, only most of the vintage iron is domestic, or at least it was 20 years ago when I used to go there more often.
So many cars and trucks from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s just driving around on the streets as daily drivers.
As someone from the Midwest who had zero experience with foreign cars, I loved visiting Arizona.
And now, Sunbeam makes housewares and heated blankets. Surely it’s not the same group?
Completely Different.
I would freaking LOVE to be on the west coast when it comes to cars. Seeing anything interesting up here in the salt zone is reserved to nice days in the summer, maybe. Seriously, I don’t even dream of importing something cool from another region as it would likely just get destroyed (and quickly). Hell, forget even delightful UK imports from the 60’s, I hardly see non-pickups from the 00’s around here anymore. And those pickups are threatening to fold in half any minute now.