Sunbeam Stiletto
John sees himself differently and chooses life without the Stiletto
There had long been something not quite right about the way the Stiletto’s visuals hung together, or not. Then one day, as I noticed my own reflection in the lefthand rear side window, it suddenly occurred to me what the problem was. My face looked unnaturally long and thin, whereas in the door glass it was short and fat. You’ve guessed it: the Stiletto’s side glass is slightly curved, and during the restoration in the mid-eighties the two rear side windows had been mistakenly transposed.
So, the windows were concave rather than convex, which explained why they never seemed to fit properly in their apertures. I didn’t dare disturb the fragile seals and the steel strips that covered them, so I entrusted the job to restoration specialist Adam Redding. He reinstated the windows in their rightful places, carefully manipulating those precious seals for which new replacements in the correct profile are unavailable. The seals survived and the Stiletto, reflections on its sides now consistent, looked properly integrated at last.
Now to that unresolved interior noise issue I wrote about in my last
Since 2014 the Stiletto had been using a stainless steel silencer, made beautifully and at great cost by exhaust specialist P D Gough to something approaching the original design.
Its note was quiet enough, but when the Imp Club had a batch of Imp Sport silencers (as used by the Stiletto) made to original drawings from the Rootes Archive Centre, I chose to buy one.
Was it quieter? Yes, slightly, with the Imp’s usual resonance around 4000rpm less evident and an exhaust note exactly as I remembered from when you could still buy a new Imp Sport. But it’s still not a quiet car, nor will it ever be. It goes with the territory.
To celebrate its new silencer, the Stiletto then emptied the contents of its steering rack, half a pint of EP80, through a split in the gaiter and over the garage floor. That called for rack removal and a new gaiter, sourced again from the Imp Club.
While I was at it, I overhauled the nearside kingpin assembly which had lost its sealing rings, and fitted the correct track rod rubber boots, also sourced from the Imp Club. Pleased that the Stiletto was now at the best it had yet been in my ownership, I drove it to
Suffolk last February for the
press launch of a new Volvo. Why? Because on the way there I could drop in to see friend and famous motoring journalist Tony Dron. Back in the early Seventies Tony was a road tester on
Motor magazine and ran a long-term test Stiletto almost exactly like mine, right down to the 998cc engine conversion.
I thought he might enjoy being reacquainted with the breed, and so it proved. He was amazed how modern my car felt, and thought it brilliant. As he wrote in an email a few days later, ‘I can’t stop thinking about that little car of yours. It took me by surprise, reminding me of a long-forgotten past in a car that was a real pleasure to drive.’
Pity my recently-rebuilt alternator failed just as I got home (wobbly slip-ring, which trashed the brushes), but a reconditioned replacement soon reinstated volts and amps. And then, for a variety of reasons including the need to fund my daughter’s wedding, I sold the Stiletto after five years of ownership. Buyer Tony Michael, who owned a Stiletto in his youth and had been searching for another for years, telephoned within hours of the advertisement’s appearance. Decent Stilettos very rarely come up for sale, so he snapped mine up eagerly and headed west along the M4 a happy man. I hope.
Do I miss it? Oddly, I don’t, despite my 46-year history with Imps and the great interest the Stiletto has always attracted. Maybe I have finally ‘done it’. Besides, I have a new Rover P6 to play with, as the below story reveals. ■ practicalclassics@bauermedia.co.uk