Vehicle Description
1954 SUNBEAM-TALBOT ALPINE SPECIAL ROADSTER #A3015176. (Stock #3741.) Grace Kelly and Cary Grant were lucky enough to drive one of these on twisting Alpine roads in the 1955 thriller-- “To Catch a Thief.” Of the 1,587 roadsters built, fewer than 100 were the Alpine rally cars known as “Special Roadsters” and only 42 of those were built with left-hand drive for the for overseas delivery. In 1954, a group of “Special Roadsters” was shipped to the United States to participate in “The Great American Mountain Rally.” Although we are still attempting to confirm the original owner of the car, we do know that this was one of those cars shipped to the USA. It was, however, not used in the rally but instead sold privately by the factory to an as-of-yet unidentified person. We do know that a noted European rally driver, Patick Vanson, was later able to purchase the car to drive on a personal 6,000 mile tour of the United States. Vanson’s wife Nicole later assembled an album of photographs and notes of Vanson’s U.S. tour. According to the factory production manifest, this was the only Alpine painted black and was shipped to the U.S. on March 22, 1954. The car was given the name “Black Beauty” by Vanson. In 1961, Bill Landefeld, in Pennsylvania, purchased “Black Beauty” for his daughter who drove it regularly for years and then stored it in the family barn until the year 2000. The car, then with just over 40,000 miles, was sent by a close family friend, Frank Jenkins, to a specialist, Steve Cota of Lyme Pond Restorations in Barnard, Vermont, for a full body-off-chassis restoration. Upon completion in 2007, “Black Beauty” was shown by Jenkins and Cota at the Lars Anderson British Automobile Show where it was awarded First Place. We have now been able to purchase the car from Carol Landefeld for whom her father had purchased the car 54 years earlier. Resplendent in black with tan leather (with dark piping) and top, and long rows of louvers on the bonnet, the car is equipped as are all “Specials” with a 4-speed manual transmission with overdrive, the higher compression, higher horsepower “S” engine and a large tachometer mounted under the center of the facia. 43,276 miles. $95,000.
