CarBrandLogos archive · Talbot · 1977

TalbotTalbot Sunbeam

Built with government money to save a Scottish factory, and it won a world title.

Photo: Charles01 · CC BY-SA 3.0

The story

A defining chapter in Talbot history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Talbot Sunbeam, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Talbot Sunbeam Lotus - Race Retro 2008 01

Origins

By the mid-1970s Chrysler's European operation was in serious trouble, and the Linwood plant in Scotland was the most politically sensitive part of it. The British government provided financial support on the condition that a new model be built there. Chrysler had neither the time nor the budget for a clean-sheet car, so engineers took the rear-wheel-drive Hillman Avenger, shortened its floorpan and put a three-door hatchback body on it. The Sunbeam went from approval to production in roughly a year and a half.

Talbot Sunbeam Lotus - Race Retro 2008 01 · estoril · CC BY 2.0

Talbot Sunbeam Lotus first reg August 1980 2172cc

Design and engineering

As a supermini it was compromised from the start: rear-wheel drive was already old-fashioned in the class, and the car reached showrooms in 1977 just as Chrysler Europe was collapsing into PSA's hands, which turned it into a Talbot in 1979. What saved its reputation was the rear-wheel drive it had been criticised for.

Talbot Sunbeam Lotus first reg August 1980 2172cc · Charles01 · CC BY-SA 3.0

In production

Working with Lotus, the company dropped a 2,172 cc sixteen-valve Lotus engine into the shell and built the Sunbeam-Lotus. It won the RAC Rally in 1980 with Henri Toivonen, then took the World Rally Championship for manufacturers in 1981, an improbable result for a car derived from a saloon designed in the 1960s and built in a factory kept open by subsidy.

1981 Talbot Sunbeam 1.6 Ti · Kieran White from Manchester, England · CC BY 2.0

Legacy

Production ended in 1981 and the Samba replaced it. Linwood closed the same year, which was the outcome the whole exercise had been meant to prevent.

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

1977–1981

Engine

928&nbsp

Body

3-door hatchback

Technical specification

The Talbot Sunbeam, in detail.

Production: 1977–1981
Class: Supermini (B)
Body style: 3-door hatchback
Layout: FR layout
Engine: 928 cc Overhead camshaft engine; OHC Straight-four engine; I4 ; 1,295 cc Overhead valve engine; OHV I4 ; 1,598 cc OHV I4 ; 2,172 cc multi-valve; 16V Lotus 900 series#Type 911; Lotus Type 911 I4
Transmission: 4-speed manual
Assembly: Linwood, United Kingdom
Manufacturer: Chrysler Europe (1977-1979); PSA (1979-1981)