Rapid City, South Dakota, June 21-27, 2009

“The headquarters hotel for SUNI V is located at 2111 N Lacrosse St. at Exit 59 off of U S interstate 90 in Rapid City. For those of you with a GPS in your car plug in that address.

The Ramkota Hotel has 267 very spacious rooms with a Western theme decor including 30 two room suites and 3 Jacuzzi Suites. The hotel has one of the Black Hills largest indoor swimming pools plus a spacious indoor water park. The hotel features the Award winning Minerva’s Restaurant and bar. Some of the amenities the hotel has to offer are: Fitness room, business center, in room coffee, tea iron and full size board, hair dryer, movies, voice mail and FREE high speed internet in all guest rooms. Safe deposit boxes are available at the front desk.

Reservations are made under SUNI V room block at $104 plus 8 % room and $2 occupancy tax. Two room suites add $30. The SUNI V block of rooms includes a continental breakfast each morning.

Parking-there is ample parking for our Sunbeams, trailers and tow vehicles. For those souvenirs or forgotten items Rushmore Mall is within walking distance. In addition to Minerva’s restaurant there is TGI Fridays, Denny’s Boston’s, Outback Steak House, Red Lobster, Fuddruckers and Olive Gardens all within walking distance.

For Reservations call 605-343-8550. For a virtual tour of the hotel go to www.rapidcity/ramkota.com

SUNI International IV – July 4-10, 2004

The following accommodations and rates are offered to SUNI IV participants during the event. These rates do not include tax on accommodations. [Add 15.6% tax and service charge]

Questions? Reservations?

Registration Form

Contact The Canyons Resort at 1-888-CANYONS (226-9667).
http://www.thecanyons.com/

Be sure to mention that you are a SUNI IV participant to ensure that you receive the SUNI rates!
Grand Summit Resort Hotel

The Grand Summit Resort Hotel rises from the heart of the Resort Village at The Canyons. The Grand Summit was recently awarded the prestigious 4- Diamond status by AAA for outstanding levels of service. The Grand Summit Resort Hotel is a combination of beautiful design, exceptional ski-in/ski-out location, attentive service and liveable luxury. It has 358 lodging options including hotel rooms, studios, 1, 2 and 3 bedroom suites and expansive penthouses.

See you in Park City

What is happening at SUNI IV?

From the web site: www.suni4.org

Join together with Sunbeam owners from all over the world for five days of touring, racing, showing, swapping, meeting old friends and making new ones, meeting our special guests. There will also be lots of activities in Park City for the whole family.

Among the featured guests will be Carroll Shelby, Rosemary Smith, George Boskoff, and we expect that others that have been invited will want to attend.

And the Special Historic Cars that have committed to date?

• The Lemans Tiger #9, one of the two prototype coupes entered by Rootes in the 1964 Lemans Race and restored by Darrell Mountjoy. Raced in 2002 in Goodwood and Lemans and in 2003 at the Monterey Historics.
• The Targa Florio Tiger #192, one of the first group of works rally cars which was modified and ran in the 1965 Targa Florio and restored by Dave McDermott. Raced in 2003 in the Monterey Historics.
• The Sports Car Forum #74 BP Tiger, driven in numerous events in 1965 by Don Sessler and restored by Buck and Claudia Trippel. Raced in 2003 at the Monterey pre-Historics and Coronado.

And many more Alpines, Tigers, Rapiers, Hillmans and Humbers. So get the cars ready and join us in Park City, Utah for another once-in-a-lifetime experience with the Rootes Clan.

From Rootes Review
Vol. 26, #3, March 2000

By Jim Morrison

The Tiger pictured here received the first place award in the Concours Personalized class at SUNI III in 1999. I am quite proud to have accomplished this against some extremely nice cars. But it is even sweeter because of how the car came to be. What Paul Harvey would call “The rest of the story”.

Dan Cameron and I used to go to the TE/AE Uniteds together when we both lived in Alabama in the 80′s. His car never seemed to be quite ready to take to a United, so we would take my Tiger. It was a Silver ’66 Mk1a with a 289 and it was a nice car but not as nice as I wanted it to be. We would kill time by conceiving of our “ultimate Tiger.” We would plan the car in detail…the color, the engine, the transmission, the rear end, the interior…even the undercoating. It was these discussions that formed the basis for my current black Tiger.

Skip ahead a few years to 1992. John Webber mentioned to me that he had gotten a little burned out on a Tiger restoration he was performing. Coincidentally, I was just getting in the frame to mind to tackle another one at that same time. So I bought John’s project car. It was a bare metal shell (no engine, drive train, interior…completely bare). John had replaced the needed sheet metal. Along with it came some new parts and all the rest of it was in boxes.

My goal from the outset was to build a car along the lines of my ultimate Tiger and take it to SUNI II in 1994 and win the Personalized Concours. It was to be perfect. My time and money were no object. This was going to be a car I kept the rest of my life and I was going to do it all the way.

When I started the restoration, I wanted to have something special under the hood … dual four-barrel carburetors. I had seen two other Tigers with dual quads and had to have one myself. My theory was that something worth doing was worth over-doing.

Well, as those of you who have done a restoration know, it takes longer than you can even imagine at the start. And costs more too. Kind of like the baseball manager, who, when hired, was given an unlimited budget and then fired later for overrunning it! The painter, who I looked long and hard for, said he would have the car back to me in 90 days. He had it for 18 months! When SUNI II rolled around, the car was not yet finished and, a bit dejected, I skipped the event knowing that my window of opportunity had passed. While I had built what I thought was a great car, it was five more years until the next SUNI and by then, the car would be an aging restoration. Not much chance against the superb cars coming out today. Fortunately, I was wrong.

So to win in 1999 and accomplish my goal was even better than just winning itself…even if was five years later than I had anticipated! My thanks to Dan Cameron for his contributions to the concept and to John Webber for his hard work in getting the car to the point of my purchasing it.

If I had to do it all over again, I absolutely would do the dual quads again. The car gets so much attention! When asked why I put two four-barrel carburetors on my Tiger, I smile and say, “Because three won’t fit.”