Sunbeam Supreme

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Reflecting on the great, thundering large-capacity sports cars of the 1920s, we remember, of course, Bentley and the Vauxhall 30-98. Perhaps we overlook Sunbeam, which sat consistently in the highest echelons of performance motoring since it became, in 1923, the first British manufacturer to win a Grand Prix. Sunbeam’sThree Litre Super Sports model was introduced in 1925. As for the Bentley ThreeLitre, for all the praise now heaped upon it, it was slower than the Sunbeam and did not boast anything so impressive as the Super Sports’s dohc engine.

The model was originally mooted as a LeMans competitor but, although it ran to second-place in 1925, it proved too fragile to meet the combined practical requirements of endurance racing and road use. It was not too much of a leap, however, to refine the model and make it into a capable Grand Prix racer, and a handful were even supercharged, like the ex-Malcolm Campbell example here. Built as a works practice car for the 1929 IrishGrand Prix at Phoenix Park and originally finished in Blue Bird Blue, the underdeveloped blower, unfortunately, upset the performance of the engine and it ultimately retired with clutch failure.

Now restored, this unique survivor perfectly illustrates the splendour of Sunbeam’s overlooked road-race tearaway. Reg Winstone tells its story in the January issue of The Automobile, on sale now.

Words by Zack Stiling. Photographs by Tony Baker.

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