While rivals were switching to front-wheel drive, the hot Sunbeam Ti kept its rear-wheel-drive layout — and reviewers of the day actually praised it for suiting a performance car better.
Lead trim: Sunbeam Ti 1,598 cc twin-Weber four (100 bhp)
Chrysler Sunbeam Ti1979–1981
- 0spots by members
- Unclaimednobody has spotted one yet
- 0sets it belongs to
Nobody in Burbles has spotted a Chrysler Sunbeam Ti yet. See one on the street, point the app at it, and the first card is yours — with your @handle permanently credited on this page.
FactWhile rivals were switching to front-wheel drive, the hot Sunbeam Ti kept its rear-wheel-drive layout — and reviewers of the day actually praised it for suiting a performance car better.
To boost the Sunbeam's image a "hot hatch" version was launched at the 1978 British International Motor Show and Paris Motor Show as the "Sunbeam Ti", going on sale in the UK from June 1979 at £3,779. Its 1.6-litre (1,598cc) engine had twin Weber carburetors and delivered 100 bhp; key features included two-tone paint, a body kit and the removal of equipment that would have compromised performance. Reviewers felt the rear-wheel-drive configuration suited a performance-orientated model.
Collectors Spotted in the Chrysler Sunbeam Lineage
No member has published a public street spot of the Chrysler Sunbeam yet — the First · Worldwide stamp is wide open.
Trims & Figures
One published trim in the catalogue. A blank is a figure not recorded, not zero.
| Trim | Years | Engine | Power | Torque | 0–60 | Drive | Gearbox | MSRP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunbeam Ti 1,598 cc twin-Weber four (100 bhp) | 1979–1981 | 1.6 L Inline-4 | 100 hp | — | — | RWD | — | — |
Owning one
We don’t estimate running costs for a car like this. What it costs depends on its condition, its specialist and how it is driven, and an average would mislead.
Owners’ builds
Nobody has claimed one yet.
Photographs
Six of these Sunbeam Lotuses went undercover for real — Greater Manchester Police stripped off the Lotus badges, repainted them in plain Talbot colors, and ran them as unmarked pursuit cars against stolen-vehicle crime all through the 1980s.
While rivals were switching to front-wheel drive, the hot Sunbeam Ti kept its rear-wheel-drive layout — and reviewers of the day actually praised it for suiting a performance car better.
Greater Manchester Police once ran a secret squad of Sunbeam Lotuses with the Lotus badges removed, blending into traffic to catch car thieves.
Rivals
Same body, same money, other badges — tap any card to flip.
Japan was a minor market for the Swift: when it passed 2 million sales in 2011, about 39% were in India and 27% in Europe, against roughly 15% at home.
To adapt the Horizon for America, Chrysler bought nearly 100 Volkswagen Rabbits purely to reverse engineer them.
The Mk3 Focus RS's AWD system could send 100 percent of engine power to the rear wheels alone — built not in Ford's home country, but at the Saarlouis plant in Germany.
In June 2003, a Mégane II became the subject of the first ever live televised crash test with a real human driver at the wheel instead of a dummy — filmed by Top Gear.
This Wagon R redesigned its rear doors specifically to kill off the D-pillar — bigger doors with built-in quarter glass solved what earlier generations needed a whole extra pillar for.
The BX was the UK's best-selling diesel car for four years from 1987, and 2,315,739 were built in all.
Six months before Suzuki retired the Fronte name for good, the CN11S's 796cc version was already being built in China under a completely different name: the Anchi 6330.
Built to use up Chrysler-Simca's parts bin, it took its engine and gearbox straight from the front-wheel-drive Simca 1100 but mounted them amidships instead.