Sports Car Forum Tiger - ad from the 60's

I was looking through some old Competition Press issues and found this advertisement:




It is neat to see the actual advert from 1969.

Steve

Wow, to be transported back in time and to start buying stuff!

Here's a film of it racing in 1965

This Home movie, incorrectly labeled "1964 Daytona runoffs", has some decent images of the Sports Car Forum Tiger (around the 1:30 mark and around the 5:40 mark)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=AsL_W7I5OlA

Very unusual to see actual films of the Runoffs like this.

MadRiver said:

Wow, to be transported back in time and to start buying stuff!

Click to expand...

Yeah there just is no justice. At home I've got an old R&T with ads in the back. One guy selling the Alpine that won the thermal award at LeMans for $3k. and another guy selling TWO Ferrari 250GT's for $20K.
Just watching old movies frosts me. I'm always saying to my wife "Look at that car"

Steve

I remember purchasing a few small parts from the Sports Car Forum in the early to mid- 70's. I believe they were located out on East Main St. in Columbus.

Yes, the dealership was on E. main. By the 70's the dealership had been sold to Bill Koch (I think that is the spelling for his last name).

Originally the dealership was started by Claude Gains and HJ Meyer. Fortunately, Don Sesslar came into the dealership in 1960 and suggested they start racing an Alpine. Don, who was better known at the time for winning the F-M championship in a Porsche RSK, was a real asset and they had very good success with the Alpine. Eventually Don started running the Tiger.

Of course they were winning with the Alpine. So a relationship built up with the execs. at Rootes and support developed, too.

HJ Meyer saved everything from the days they were racing the Alpine and Tiger. Down to the copies of the travel reimbursment checks.

On the west coast Hollywood Sport Car enjoyed similar support.




Steve

Great info. I believe there was a guy here in northern NJ who was a very successful Alpine racer during those time. I can't recall hid name......maybe something like "Amato"?

For what it's worth, the ads for the Maser and the Sunbeam are amazing but the *real* deal is that '63 Carrera for $3950. Have you seen what they bring these days?

In high school I bought an approx 10 year old MGA (ran decent) for $200 and later dumped it for $60 to buy a running TR3 (for about $160). Those were the days. Fun to think back........

Len Amato was an Sunbeam dealer from Morristown.

Len raced a number of Alpines but the most interesting one was the 62' Sebring car. According to Jenny Amato Rootes gave him the old Payne/Sheppard (#43) car to race in the Northeast promoting the Alpine.
(this car was found in 2002)

The car had been on display at the New York autoshow as the #41 car of Proctor/Harper. Recall that the "real" Proctor/Harper car had been side swiped by Don Yenko's Corvette. Apparently there wasn't enough time between Sebring and the New York autoshow to repair and transport the car to New York (or perhaps it just was easier to change the car's numbers to an undamaged Sebring Alpine)

I wasn't too sure if this was how things transpired but we found the Aluminum panels (2007) off of Len's old Sebring Alpine and as the layers of paint were removed you could see two sets of numbers.

As a side note, most of the "factory" cars had their aluminum panels removed since the SCCA wouldn't allow the use.

A few years ago I found a very nice Black Series II Alpine race car which I am fairly certain Len had built up or had at his dealership at one time.


Steve