Engines drew Sunbeam into Grand Prix racing and participation in the achievement of world land speed records.

In spite of its well-regarded cars and aero engines, by 1934 a long period of particularly slow sales had brought continuing losses.

Sunbeam was unable to repay money borrowed for ten years in 1924 to fund its Grand Prix racing programme, and a receiver was appointed.

An avid cyclist he established his Sunbeamland Cycle Factory in 1897 in his Paul Street premises manufacturing and assembling pedal bicycles he branded Sunbeam.

[1] Rugby-educated Thomas Cureton (1863–1921) began as his apprentice then became Marston's right-hand man in the cycle works and the cautious advocate of a motor-car venture.

[2] It would be supplied with a 2-seater body on a channel steel frame powered by a 4-horsepower horizontal engine with electric ignition intended to run at 700 rpm and have two forward speeds and reverse using belt drive to differential gears on the live axle.

They used a frame like a motorised quadracycle version of Starley's Coventry Rotary and were to be referred to by The Automotor Journal as "the curiously light vehicles with which their (Sunbeam) name has for some time been associated".

327 cc engine designed to run at 1,800 rpm, 2-speed gearbox, central wheels driven by belt then chain drives from the differential.

Price £120[6] At the annual Stanley Cycle Show in November 1902 Sunbeam, thoroughly approved by the magazine's correspondent, displayed beside more Mableys a 12-horsepower four-cylinder car with the engine beneath a bonnet at the front, camshaft within the "crank chamber", a four-speed gearbox and all four artillery wheels of the same size fitted with pneumatic tyres.

1527 cc engine designed to run at 1,000 rpm, four-speed gearbox, rear wheels driven by chain drives from the differential.

[7] Very keen to design and build his own car, he moved back to England and arrived at Sunbeam in Wolverhampton on a motor-quadracycle he had built himself.

In 1910 he built Sunbeam Nautilus, his first dedicated land-speed-record car, powered by a 4.2-litre version of this engine design.

Coatalen won 22 prizes in Toodles II at Brooklands in 1911 and also achieved a flying mile of 86.16 mph (138.66 km/h) to take the 16 hp Short Record.

Sunbeam cars powered by more conventional (for the time) side-valve engines featured prominently in the 1911 Coupe de l'Auto race, and improved versions won first, second and third the next year.

However Sunbeam was successful with the introduction of newer manufacturing techniques and became one of the first to build aluminium single-block engines, a design that would not become common until the 1930s.

Under VSCC rules all cars made in Wolverhampton post WW1 qualify as vintage and as post-vintage thoroughbreds after 1 January 1931.

Financial difficulties arose in the early years of the Great Depression and just before the opening of the October 1934 Olympia Motor Show an application was made to the court for an appointment of a receiver and manager for the two major subsidiaries of S T D, Sunbeam and Automobiles Talbot France.

[19] It proved impossible for the directors to avoid the appointment of a receiver to Sunbeam Motor Car Company[20] and S T D was unable to complete its sale to Rootes.

Coatalen was pleased to build racing cars for Henry Segrave, who won the French and Spanish GPs in 1923/4.

This important straight-eight dohc, four valve per cylinder aluminium block car influenced by the great designer Ernest Henry proceeded to win the 1922 Tourist Trophy in the hands of Jean Chassagne.

The two camshafts were driven by a complex set of 16 gears from the front of the crankshaft – a similar arrangement to that used on the Maori engine which had two OHC per bank of cylinders.

The same year Coatalen's new 3-litre Super Sports came 2nd at Le Mans, beating Bentley – this was the first production twin-cam car in the world.

Coatalen decided to re-enter the LSR field himself, building the truly gigantic Sunbeam 1000HP powered by two 450 hp (340 kW) Matabele engines.

The name lives on in the open space known as Sunbeam Gardens near a housing estate built in the early 1990s on most of the Ladbroke Grove site of the Clément-Talbot car factory.

[26] One of the original buildings remains, the Talbot administration block now known as Ladbroke Hall, with the earl's crest high above its main entrance.

Rootes was an early exponent of badge engineering, building a single mass-produced chassis and equipping it with different body panels and interiors to fit different markets.

The car bodies were manufactured by another Rootes Group company, British Light Steel Pressings of Acton, however the convertible drophead coupé shells were completed by Thrupp & Maberly coachbuilders in Cricklewood.

It was named supposedly by Norman Garrad, (works Competition Department) who was heavily involved in the Sunbeam-Talbot successes in the Alpine Rally in the early 1950s using the Saloon model.

Garrad became convinced the Alpine frame could also be adapted the same way, and contracted Carroll Shelby to create a prototype with a Ford engine.

Brand loyalty began to erode, and was greatly damaged when they decided to drop former marques and start calling everything a Chrysler.