01
Origins
The 3-litre Super Sports of 1926 brought Sunbeam's racing science to the road: a twin-overhead-camshaft straight-six — among the first such engines offered to the public — in a long, low chassis built for the fast touring and competition its buyers expected. It ran at Le Mans with distinction, finishing second overall in 1925 before the model's formal catalogue years, and gave the Bentleys of the day genuine anxiety from a car of smaller displacement and greater sophistication. Perhaps 300 were built; the marque's finances, drained by Grands Prix and record cars, could sustain nothing more ambitious. The 3-litre is consequently rare and prized — the purest expression of Coatalen's Sunbeam, where the racing department's ideas reached customers with the paint barely dry.
1926 Sunbeam Tourer pic-005 · Alf van Beem · CC0
