Doug DeMuro, when he still wrote for Jalopnik, picked up a used Range Rover from Car Max and wrote about it for over a year. At the time Car Max would offer a comprehensive extended warranty on anything.
So people quickly glommed onto the fact that you could buy an expensive to maintain and run, depreciated luxury car with all the reliability British engineering can provide. And that warranty would make it practical to do. Basically buy the used luxury car, enjoy it while the warranty lasted. Car Max would foot the bill for all the insanity. And then you could sell it back to Car Max. And repeat. Never having to deal with any the major costs.
Car Max restricted the warranties on certain models not long after coverage like this started getting attention.
There are a lot of exotic or rare cars where I live now ( Edmonton Alberta ) ; a person who works at a nearby bookstore has a Lotus Elite from the 1950s and one from the 1970s that he often drives to work so you can see them in the parking lot. The original Elite is unrestored, a little fibreglass crazing maybe, but very nice. Good to see them being used
My dad supposedly almost bought a Sunbeam Tiger off a co-worker when I was a baby. I have still not forgiven him for not doing so, although he blames me because it wasn’t a “family” car. I like to point out that this didn’t stop a friend of his who drove around in a Jaguar XK-140 with his baby in a cardboard box in the passenger foot well (the infamous “Baby Box”).
We have a red Giulia (identical to the Giulietta but with 1600cc instead of 1300 and a fake hood scoop to give the engine more clearance) in my parents’ garage. It’s the world’s longest ongoing restoration* project and I have to remind my father from time to time that he’s not getting younger and that I don’t want to have to finish it alone.
*Or, rather, just getting the damn thing driveable again.
The Sunbeam Tiger was the Ford 289 powered monster. The original Alpine was nice looking but not much different than the rest of the underpowered British sports cars of the era.
Way more fun; it’s a hundred times more reliable and you can get it serviced almost anywhere. I’d love to get a Miata but am headed toward carlessness due to living in downtown Vancouver and not using my '93 Corolla except for grocery runs and the like.
This has been my dream car since I saw one at a car show in norther CA in the 90s. I’ll settle for a Sunbeam Alpine in a pinch though
This is what a having father of a certain age will do to you. British car appreciation is a heritable affliction. We tore my dad’s 69 triumph spitfire apart 20 years ago and it’s still not drivable… One day!
I am happy to see that I am not the only Boinger cross-pollinating on BAT. Between this, that and Ars I easily use up my daily allotment of browsing. XCKD and the like keep me clicking past bedtime.
Probably because it’s a Grand Tourer.
Jaguar, MG, TVR, Aston Martin, Austin Healey, Bentley, Bristol, Jenson (who helped develop the Tiger) all built/build GT’s with big V8s and V12s.
I had a 1966 MGB for a few years. I can remember driving across the local shopping center parking lot and hitting big cracks in the pavement. One jolt would kill my lights, the next one would bring them back. Lucas, Prince of Darkness.
It bears a GT mark but it isn’t much of a Grand Tourer.
Originally grand tourers were larger, usually 2 door, coupes with fixed roofs. With big engines and luxury accoutrements meant for comfortable long distance driving.
The Tiger is a v8 version/conversion of the Alpine, which was decidedly an old school sports car/roadster. So small and light, built for nimble short distance driving on more local roads. And less on the mold of the classic luxury car. I like to think of them of the short shorts of the motoring world. Jaunty, but impractical.
This is kind of the early days of GT meaning “the fast version”, when these categories got even more messy than they had been to start. And in this case you can blame Carroll Shelby. His early car design career, with both the Tiger and the Cobra. Was pretty much defined by tweaking British sports cars for bigger American engines so they’d appeal to the American market (where big engines were the only thing). Which would eventually lead to the Mustang, and thus Pony Cars.
No kidding? It must have been a bunch of bright, bushy tailed, freshly minted MBAs with absolutely zero experience owning their own vehicles, who started that business. Or that program.
Reminds me of pets dot com in the late 90s. I had two big dogs that required frequent purchases of big bags of dog food. I would get coupons emailed to me all the time, so I would regularly buy a few 40 lb bags at half the cost of the local chain pet store, along with free shipping of all that mass, too. That program, alas, that business, didn’t last long. But it was a heck of a deal, and I felt sorry for the UPS delivery guys.
