CAR manufacturers routinely top their ranges with ‘hot’ versions of more mundane metal – but 60 years ago the Sunbeam Rapier was something special.

The Rapier was unique –a sporting family four-seater saloon wrapped up in an eye-catching coupe body.

Sir William Rootes, patriarch of the Hillman/Sunbeam/Hunter Rootes Group empire, took his inspiration from the Studebaker Starliner coupe. Sir William thought the British market, still recovering from post-war privations, would be receptive to a smaller variation on the Starliner theme built on the group’s new mid-sized platform, codenamed Audax.

Rootes also planned to pay the Americans back for inspiring him by exporting as many to the US as his factories could build.

To be sure the new car would have appeal on both sides of the Atlantic Rootes reached out to the Raymond Loewy industrial design styling studio which had penned the Starliner. No doubt Loewy couldn’t believe his luck – essentially he was being paid to design the same car twice (although stylist Robert Bourke had done all the hard work)!

The new Rapier did share one feature in common with its predecessor, the Hillman Californian; it had pillarless side windows which left a completely ‘open’ side profile when they were wound down. Enterprising advertising men in the US dubbed this design a ‘hard-top convertible’. Ironically, the Rapier’s sister cars – the Hillman Minx/Singer Gazelle – were available from the start with proper convertible bodies. Rapier buyers would have to wait three years until 1958.

In the UK that still didn’t stop Rootes calling its new Rapier ‘one of the most exciting cars on the road’ when it launched in October 1955 with a surprisingly expensive price tag of £1044 (a legacy of the ridiculously complex construction which saw the body pressed in Cowley, then shipped across London to be painted in Cricklewood before being transported to Coventry for final assembly).

The new car may have looked sporty but it was a true sheep in wolf’s clothing. The 1390cc overhead valve engine was as bog standard as it was possible to be and the 57hp output was as modest as the performance.

Drivers changed gear via a column stalk and steered via crude worm-and-nut system with just 2.5 turns lock-to-lock. More interestingly, the rear leaf spring design was an early example of a variable rate suspension system which was far more effective than the ancient lever arm designs which were very popular at the time.

Lowey’s styling services were dispensed with for the Mark II which was entirely an in-house job despite being an even stronger American design. It was the work of 19-year-old Tim Fry who would go on to help create the Imp hatchback which eventually brought Rootes to its knees.

With more power, better steering and stiffer front suspension the Rapier suddenly became a wieldy tool for private rally drivers. Competition success quickly filtered down to the production car and the Mark III Rapier was notable for having front disc brakes. The Rootes competition department never really gave up on the Rapier, even when the Mini began to sweep all before it on rallies across Europe.

The engine was upgraded, an all-syncromesh gearbox was added and the final cars gained Rootes’ 1725cc big(ger) block engine for relaxed cruising and nippy acceleration. However, financial problems meant another re-style, which would have given the car even bigger fins, had to be scrapped.

The Rapier soldiered on until 1967, by which time it was seriously off the pace, as was the Rootes Group itself. By this time the Americans had turned the tables – and Chrysler had snapped up the business.

Ironically, one of the things it did was to get rid of the decidedly American-looking Sunbeam Rapier. Fins would never the same again.