Despite rumors to the contray, I'm alive and well as is my B382002668.
I know of two indivuals that were Rootes employees and were involved with the
acutal development of the Tiger production cars.
The firts is John Clegg who lives near Ninevah, Indiana. He is a retired
Rootes
engineer who works with the Alpine engine design and then was assigned to the
Tiger development. He has some interesting stories to tell about the project.
I arranged for Tom Erhart to interview him at the Indiana SAAC Spring Fling
years ago. Tom taped the entire interview. One of John's stories:
The early pre-production Tigers were loaned out to Rootes employees on
weekends. But it seem that they were constantly being returned with what
was referred to as a 'slight miss'. Actually a blown engine. Seems that no
one
told the people to not shift the Ford V8 at 6500 RPM like they would the
Alpine!
Another story: The battery vent hose came about because John had a Tiger on
a test stand for a long run test. The generator overcharged the battery and
created
so much hydrogen gas that there was an explosion and the car was burnt up!
The other indivdual designed a developed the Rack and Pinon Steering unit. He
knows what was made from. He also claims that he worked for months trying
to reduce the terrible kick back that the car had. He finally developed a
solution
but it was rejected because it cost too much.
He left Rootes and moved to South Bend, Indiana where he worked for Studebaker
Packard and developed the world's first power rack and pinion that was used on
Studebakers and the Avanti.
Not all car buts live in California. Most of the Classic Cars from Duesenburg
to
Cords came from Indiana!!
Let me know if you're interested in talking to these two. I'm Dave Johnson
at DJoh797014@aol.com or davidtjohnson@yahoo.com.
This is my first message to the Tiger net. I've retired my Commodore 128 and
have made Billy Gates richer after many threats of bodily harm from fellow
Sunbeamers if I didn't get on the net.
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