THE RACING SUNBEAMS IN NEW ZEALAND - NO 2
ISLE OF MAN TOURIST TROPHY CAR 1914 WORDS ANDREW ANDERSON PHOTOS THE LATE LUCY WILLS VIA ANDREW ANDERSON
As acquired from Fuggles with works road equipment
Late in the day of 21 September 1913, all those British side valve proponents, after seeing George Boillot’s last victory in the 3 litre Peugeot, “the apotheosis of the Henry design and perhaps the finest racers that ever came out of that famous factory”, went home to do some hard thinking. Some, like Laurence Pomeroy senior, went home to “get some old drawings off the shelf”. Louis Coatalen (Director of Sunbeam) however, had other ideas. With the Coupe de L’Auto formula going down to 2½ litres, Peugeot, like Sunbeam, sold off their 3 litre cars and started work on a 2½ litre design. One of those cars went to Jacques Menier in France while another was bought by Henry Royce to study and was kept by him until the start of WWI. The third went to Louis Coatalen, obviously in extreme secrecy, and was totally stripped and detailed drawings were made, scaling up perfect copies to a 3.3 litre version for the revived RAC Tourist Trophy (TT) race. Coatalen had designed, built and driven special cars for the 1906, ‘07 and ‘08 TT races for Humber and Hillman. The new RAC formula for the revived TT was only two items, an engine capacity of 3310cc (weird) and a minimum weight of 2408lb. The race, over the 40 mile Isle of Man (IOM) circuit, involved 16 laps spread over two days on 10 and 11 June, and attracted Sunbeam plus eight other manufacturer’s entries, 24 cars in all. Coatalen had had to consider up-scaling his copy design to TT spec, but also up to the 4½ litre capacity limit required of the GP de L’ACF in Lyon for 4 July 1914. For this latter up-scale some serious redesign and modification was done, especially to the valve gear and lubrication system. Thus four cars went to the IOM, three being pure copy cars, and the fourth, IOM2, race car 15 for Dario Resta, had all the GP car modifications as a flying test bed. 28 Beaded Wheels
That 21½ cwt minimum weight allowed Coatalen to design a TT chassis and running gear which was perfectly able to cope with the massive power increase delivered by the 4½ litres for the very fast Lyon GP circuit. The TT cars had engines set back in extra long subframes which were all predrilled for fitting larger engines. Actual engine sizes were: 3 litre Peugeot, 78x156 mm T T Sunbeam, 81x160 mm, suitable for both copy and modified car GP Sunbeam, 94x160 mm, same engine height but longer. The modified designs involved two-bolt conrods instead of the four-bolt copy ones. On that first day’s racing the Guinness brothers kept ahead of the field, but Resta suffered a conrod bolt failure and IOM2 was out with a hole in the crankcase and a smashed conrod and piston. Kenelm Lee Guinness finally won, with brother Algernon going out with a mechanical failure. Back to Wolverhampton with all four cars and IOM2 left there for a good looksee at the whys and wherefores of the damage. The three copy cars, complete with 4½ litre engines and deeper radiators, were then off to Lyon, arriving with only one practice day left. The 4 July start had the cars off in pairs, Sunbeams matched to the desmodromic valved and front wheel braked Delages, and proving quicker off the mark. Mercedes were back with a no less than a five car team to a 1, 2, 3 victory, with Goux fourth in Peugeot II and Resta fifth in Sunbeam II. Chassagne’s Sunbeam I was out
