Oakland Street Sighting - 1959 Singer Gazelle Series III

This week we've been looking at Rootes Group cars, and already seen representation for the Sunbeam and Hillman brands. Now let's check out a rarely-seen Singer Gazelle.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1958 Hillman Husky Series I

This week we're having a look at some cars produced by the Rootes Group in England. Rootes is known in large part for the Sunbeam Alpine sports car, but the company also built a lot of down-to-earth family cars and utility vehicles. This is a late-1950s Hillman Husky van, produced in 1958 or '59.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1965 Sunbeam Alpine 1725 Roadster

One of the more intriguing car companies for me is the Rootes Group from Britain, manufacturer of such vehicles as Talbot, Commer, Humber, Sunbeam, Hillman and Singer. The company actually began as a dealership network in 1913, and over the next few decades it grew to purchase a series of British automobile manufacturers. Rootes subscribed, more or less, to the General Motors school of thought: a brand for every purse and purpose, and clearly defined model ranges to fit each application and niche. Rootes was an early adopter of badge-engineering, another GM favorite, and was also an interesting early producer of compact luxury cars.

Rootes operated in various markets around the world with varying levels of success, in Europe, Australia, North America, South America and even the Middle East (the latter by local factories under license). In the late 1960s, Chrysler took an interest in Rootes, both as a captive import for the US market and to get itself a foothold in Europe where Chrysler's American-oriented cars were not marketable. Around this time Chrysler took over Rootes and French carmaker Simca, and made a fine mess of it over the next decade. What little was left when Chrysler was done with it was sold to Peugeot in 1978. In 2007 Rootes ended where it began 94 years earlier, as nothing more than a name on a UK car dealership.

This week we're taking a look at an assortment of Rootes Group cars. First of these is one of the best-known Rootes cars in America, the Sunbeam Alpine sports roadster.

Castro Valley Street Sighting - 1960 Sunbeam Alpine Series I Roadster

Sunbeam Alpines and V8 Tigers are among my favorite vintage British roadsters, so it's a treat whenever I come across one. Though, as is common with older European cars, I'm terrible at narrowing down the model year or series number without visual clues. Best I can tell, we're looking at a Series I or Series II Alpine produced between 1959 and 1962. I'd like to think it's a '62 because the Series II cars had more power and were the most popular series. A 1963 car would have had vent windows on the doors and 1964 did away with the tail fins (making the rear somewhat resemble a Triumph TR4). The Alpine was a Rootes Group parts-bin special of Hillman and Sunbeam pieces, with a '50s-fashionable body and such novelties as roll-up windows and a heater that actually worked. It was good enough that one saw duty as James Bond's car in 1962's Dr. No. Granted, it only had to outrun a hearse. Nonetheless, modified Alpines were used successfully in racing.