On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:07:01 -0800, David Nebenzahl wrote:
I used to own a cute li'l car that I got for next to nothing; a Sunbeam
Minx.

Interesting. I'm familiar with Sunbeam (tinkered with the idea of buying
a Tiger or Alpine at one point in time) - Hillman made the Minx in the
UK, but Google tells me it was rebadged and sold as a Sunbeam product for
the US market and so they're the same car. However, the Minx name - at
least in the UK under Hillman - covered quite a long period and a variety
of different body styles., and I'm not sure which of them were rebadged
and sold as Sunbeams.

Alpine, mind you: instead of a sports car, this was a
little 4-door sedan. Really compact. Ran but needed a whole ****load of
stuff, from the drive train to headlight trim to who knows what else.
This was back in the 19-ought-80s.

Pretty much anything is restorable. For a few years I used to pass a
little Singer Gazelle (Singer* were another Rootes Group member, and I
believe the Gazelle used 1950s Minx running gear) sitting on its side
in someone's driveway, half-covered by a tarp. Moved away from that area,
came back about a decade later, and there it was, fully restored and back
on four wheels.

* no relation to Singer US, makers of sewing machines.

So I'm just wondering if it would have been possible to fix up that
little car, and how much trouble and money it might have taken.

Not sure - probably depends on what year your car was. Rootes Group stuff
from the 50s and later seems to survive pretty well, but I bet pre-WWII
Minxes are hard to come by these days.

cheers

Jules