Free to good home

Coo, I dunno. I've only seen pictures of the thing. This was an old
convertible, in the 1950s/60s, so not the variation on the Hunter.[/QUOTE]

Ooh I didn't know about that one - the one my father had was the
one that was also badged as the Humber Sceptre.

 

I think the twin Webers were the norm for that engine, I found one
in a Commer camper van that had them TAAAW.

We did have one fun event when one of the jets fell off, which
caused much roaring of the engine. The jet found it's way past the valvee
into the engine so the repair included a head skim which made it even more
lively.

 

More likely a 1600, then. The 1725 came along later, but the 1600 had a
number of redeeming features: a gretaer willingness to rev and light
weight amongst them.

 

If it was the Hunter GT, it shouldn't have had Webers - standard fitment
was a pair of <spit> Strombergs <spit>.

The Hunter GLS was the kiddy, as engine specialists Holbay had been let
loose on the motor, which came out of the factory with twin 40 DCOE
Weber carbs and a camshaft with a more exciting profile. 107bhp instaed
of the GT's 90ish. Of course, it's possible that somebody had got at
the GT and retro-fitted the cam and carbs, or, more likely, had
transplanted the motor from a GLS into it.

There were plenty of these engines sitting in scrapyards, waiting an
adventurous youth to whip 'em out of the Rapier H120 (or Hunter GLS) to
which they were fitted, which had suffered a scenery interface at the
hands of a previous adventurous youth - as the handling was, shall we
say, less than inspiring, and the brakes questionable at best. The evil
comination of the attentions of the metal moth and an MOT tester also
consigned many of these cars to an early resting place in a pile of
their contemporaries in the Happy Hunting Grounds.

 

Unfortunately, "Minx-shaped" doesn't really help, as there were even
more models of Minx than there were of Rapiers. The early Rapiers were
beautiful little cars, rather upmarket, festooned with walnut and
leather inside and polished aluminium and chrome outside. They
certainly had sporting pretensions, as they were the mainstay of the
Competetions Department for years, until the advent of the mighty
Sunbeam Tiger(1)and woeful Hillman Imp (the very first 'hot hatch'(2),
of course (Sunbeam Stiletto, anyone?)).

The little curvy Rapiers were never fitted with the 1725 engine, they
were stuck with earlier-generation 1400 and 1500 iron engines with twin
Strombergs or Solexes. I guess that somebody may have transplanted an
engine from the much later box-bodied Hunter GLS or Rapier H120 into
your Rapier before you laid hands on it, and that must have been
impressively over-engined for the outdated suspension and tiny brakes of
the little Rapier.

The Rootes Group were great innovators in their time, and brought the
concept of overdrive units to the mass market - they'd been fitted to
such exotica as Aston martins and Jags before, but Rootes stuck them in
great numbers of different models. Not, strictly speaking, an "electric
overdrive" but certainly electrically switched, by a spindly column
switch(3)- chrome stalk, tapered black bakelite knob. Apart from
switching the o/d, it also lit a very funky white light(4) on the dash.

The overdrive itself was a Laycock de Normanville unit tacked onto the
end of the gearbox output shaft, extending the length of the 'box by a
foot or so and the weight by about a stone. I think it was described as
a 'hydro-mechanical' unit, its operation governed by the oil pressures
within it, function provided by sun and planet gears. Very clever and
laudable, as it would drop the rpm by ~1500 at cruising speed in top, or
provide superior acceleration when desired by its effective provision of
another intermediate ratio between third and fourth (or, if rewired,
between all the forward gears). This rewiring enabled quite startling
traffic-light Grand Prix performance: 1st -> 2nd -> o/d2nd -> direct 3rd
and the 3-litre Capri drops into the rear-view mirror


1. Mad Marty, a mate of mine, had a Sunbeam Rapier Tiger in 1980, which
possessed the chassis number 'GMX(for eXperimental)00000003, meaning it
was the third car off the line. A fastback body type, it was a factory
development of the H120, but fitted with a Yankee V8 engine of some
6000cc displacement, otherwise fitted to the Dodge Charger across the
pond.

2. Laudable concept, and a very bold move, that even Alec Issigonis
would have been proud of - take a little monocoque box and stick a
potentially tweakable all-alloy engine in the back of it, leaning over
at a huge angle to get it in and drive the rear wheels almost directly
throug a pair of dirty great rubber doughnuts. The trouble was that
maintenace was difficult and really bloody awkward, as access was
miserable.
The engine itself was developed from a Coventry Climax water pump,
designed for the Fire Brigade. Great in its original concept, pumping
thousands of gallons of water on to a burning building, running at 5000
rpm all day long in a well-ventilated trailer. Stick it in the back of
a car, leaning over at a silly angle, with a tiny, side-mounted
radiator, and it runs hot - and stinks of hot oil. Make it go a bit
faster and it runs hotter, cooks its oil and the top end wants to leave,
via the head gasket, frequently. When it goes, it's lovely, apart from
its unfortuante tendency to lunch driveshaft couplings, exhausts and
gearboxes. And /stink/ of hot oil, of course.
Would wheelie in reverse, however.

3. BL had a superior switching mechanism - a slide-to-operate switch
set into the gear lever knob, rather than the rather foolish left-hand
column swith of the Rootes cars. This meant that rather than having to
declutch (or switch and grab, or click o/d out after the change) for a
smooth change when it was desired to go from o/d3 into direct4 rather
than o/d4, one could smoothly slip the switch across when going through
the gate.

4. Anotehr example of innovation and attention to detail, all the idiot
lights were individual rather than in a block. Each light could be
'dimmed' for nighttime use, by sliding the lens down with a fingernail
on a moulded ridge, bringing down a thicker-section plastic lens.

 

Now you mention it, it was a GLS, not a GT. Now you mention it, I do
recall the Holbay name in connection with it too. My brother has just
confirmed that it was a GLS, and his unforgettery for such things is
almost photographic.

On that short drive of about five miles each way on mostly narrow
country lanes, I didn't get much of a chance to try it out, but IIRC it
went very quickly in a straight line but not all that well round
corners.

I'm not surprised; I certainly see few if any of the Arrow range in
classic car lineups at the vintage rallies we get to.

 

That is *incredibly* neat. So you could dim out the ones you felt you
could do without (main beam indicator, for example) and leave bright the
ones that mattered (like oil pressure or temperature).

 

Exactly. Very simple - rectangular in plan, with a raised ridge across
the face. Above the ridge, thicker and slightly more opaque plastic;
below the ridge, thinner and thereore more transparent plastic.

For daytime use, ridges up for maximum idiot light glowiness - when it
gets dark, slide (as you say) the ridges to the main beam, overdrive and
indicator warning lights down for a subtler, more peaceful, ambient
glow. As the meerkat would say - simples.

My old MKI Humber Sceptre (CPY 777C, of 1965 vintage) had, as we called
them in those days, a 'full dash'. Speedo and revcounter in hooded
binnacles either side of the (fully adjustable(1)) steering column and
four supplemantary clocks in a little binnacle top centre of the dash.
In the bottom of said binnacle, a strip of pale blue celluloid covered a
couple of tiny bulbs: the light from these would softly illuminate the
banks of switches beneath - and the ignition lock(2), placed slap in the
centre of the dash.

1. Great for winding up passengers: undo the cam operated lock by the
driver's knee, then subtly unwind the other locking mech which was the
horn button surround (in the hub of the steering wheel, where God meant
horn buttons to be) and then the full range of adjustments was
available. The column would pivot about 30 degrees up and down, whilst
the released wheel would slide out about six inches from the top of the
column, towards the driver: to compensate for the shortarmed types.

When entering a climbing bend, one could drop the column to its lowest
point between one's knees and as the bend took effect, whilst making a
"WAAAAR" noise, open the throttle and pull the column up and the wheel
out as if climbing in a Spitfire. Great for attacking unsuspecting
Mercedes from below.


2. I only binned the ignition key for the Humber the other day, having
come across it in the bottom of a box, still attached to its Rootes
Group fob. It was a single-edged, short key - and it had seen so much
wear it was abraded to a point. This is why a) the bloody keys would
fall out and disappear into the console and b) the car could be started
with a tanner.

 

Dunnarf worry the passengers if you do similar with the wheel on a Volvo
B10 coach...

 

Well, I certainly fitted it. I thught it came out of another rapier,
but it was a long while ago and unforgettery fails. but yes, stopping
was never predictable. 3 leading and one trailing shoe each side, 1
1/4" wide ferodo. But then, mine always had cross-ply tyres anyway.

 

My Sceptre,

http://www.geocities.com/rhuarihannan/humbersceptre.jpg

which was just like that one - came to me with a 1600 engine and some
go-faster bits. I lobbed a Hunter GLS motor in it after killing the
1600 and added a Kent 'Fast Road' cam. It, too, had crossplies on it,
remould crossplies once I got short of the old spondoolies - but the
suspension was so knackered I doubt better tyres would have made it go
round corners much better. The leading eyes of the rear leaf springs
detached themselves from the chassis in response to the extra power,
which made handling even more interesting.

After a welding session inspired by a painful MOT session, the remoulds
were pretty shot and I fell into the possession of a set of chrome
Rostyle wheels, shod with what appeared to be nearly new radials.
Pirelli was the manufacturer, Cinturato the type. Turned out they
looked new because they were made from a rubber compound closely allied
to black concrete - the only effect tarmac had on them was to make them
a bit shinier on the shoulders, no appreciable tread wear took place.

They became infamous and were re-christened "Singe yer arseholes" in
appreciation of the sphincter exercise they brought about. Used to make
a lovely buzzing sound when approaching a junction on wet tarmac - all
locked up.

 

The only one with twin Webers was the Holbay lump and any Commer van
that had them was a retrofit. The alloy headed lump fitted to lower
models had twin Strombergs, again not something that was ever fitted to
a Commer van, unless by an owner.
Fitting twin SUs in place of the Shitebergs was a worthwhile mod.