I heard a great story (could be apocryphal) about Rootes' first look at the
Tiger. Carroll Shelby had built the first prototype and it was sent to
England for evaluation.
Lord Rootes (who was fairly elderly at the time) looked the car over and
decided to go for a ride. His son offered to drive, but Lord Rootes said,
no, he'd drive it himself. This made the engineers pretty nervous.
So off went Lord Rootes with his son, and a Rover sedan was sent out as a
chase car in case anything broke. The Rover turned back within a mile
because they couldn't keep up.
A few minutes later they heard this small-block Ford V8 come screaming down
the road. The Tiger went flying past the factory gate with Lord Rootes' hair
streaming in the wind. He came back, parked the car in the courtyard and
announced, "We'll build it!"
Gordon Glasgow
-----Original Message-----
From: datsun-roadsters-bounces@autox.team.net
[mailto:datsun-roadsters-bounces@autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Jerry Krakauer
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 12:07 PM
To: 'roadster list'
Subject: Re: [Roadsters] Is it a Tiger?
I believe that Chrysler tried to use their 273(same block as the 318, but
was lighter and had physically smaller heads) but as Dave, said too big.
Even the Ford small block was real tight, the right bank rear spark plug had
to be changed from the passenger compartment via an under dash removable
panel. In the end for both appearance and handling the older AC
chassis(which in stock form used a number of different inline sixes) was a
far better choice than the Alpine for the power of the 260/289.
Jerry Krakauer
SRL311 00099
-----Original Message-----
From: datsun-roadsters-bounces@autox.team.net
[mailto:datsun-roadsters-bounces@autox.team.net] On Behalf Of David Patten
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 1:49 PM
To: roadster list
Subject: Re: [Roadsters] Is it a Tiger?
The Tiger came with Ford V8's, most had a 260CI and later ones a 289CI. It
was rumored that the Tiger would get a 318ci Mopar engine after Chyrsler
bought out the Rootes Group, owner of Sunbeam, but the 318's size was too
big. Ultimately the Chrysler buy out of Rootes killed the Tiger because of
its Ford engine.
On the Datsun side of things. While I was in high school a local kid put a
289 into a Datsun Roadster. It flew down the 1//4 mile. I gave thought to
buying it, but that never panned out.
--
Dave Patten, Owner
FutoFab, LLC
199 Stark Hwy So
Dunbarton, NH 03046
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