It was seen at the time and subsequently as the retort of Louis Hervé Coatalen, Sunbeam's energetic chief engineer, to the Bentley 3 Litre which by then was beginning to make its mark, having won at Le Mans earlier that year.

[4] The cylinder bores translated into a fiscal horse-power rating of 20.9 hp which under the system operating in the 1920s attracted an annual Road Fund Tax of £21.

[2] The difference of £5 might be considered immaterial for anyone who could afford to purchase and run a car of this type, but £5 was at the time more than the average weekly wage in Britain,[2][citation needed] so the annual saving to the Bentley buyer may well have been significant even in this class.

Two Sunbeams were entered in the 1925 Le Mans,[5] one driven by Henry Segrave and George Duller, the other by Jean Chassagne and Sammy Davis.

Segrave and Duller were forced to retire but Chassagne and Davis achieved second place, beaten only by the Lorraine-Dietrich of Rossignol and de Courcelles.