Sunbeam Alpine Traditional Cache
Hidden : 3/31/2010
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size: micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

Placed as part of the Central Maine Power Run by the Power Rangers.
This is a camoed film can that contains a log and a collectable pathtag for the FTF.

Sunbeam Alpine

I was a young teen when the first James Bond movie, Dr. No came out. The car he drove? A Sunbeam Alpine! I wanted one!
The Sunbeam Alpine is a sporty two seat open car or coupé from Rootes Group's Sunbeam car marque. The original was launched in 1953 as the first vehicle to bear the Sunbeam name alone since the 1935 takeover of Sunbeam and Talbot by the Rootes Group.
The original Alpine was launched in 1953 as the first vehicle from Sunbeam-Talbot to bear the Sunbeam name alone since the 1935 takeover of Sunbeam and Talbot by the Rootes Group. The car was derived from the Sunbeam-Talbot 90 Saloon and has since become colloquially known as the "Talbot" Alpine. It was a two-seater sports roadster which was initially developed by Sunbeam-Talbot dealer George Hartwell in Bournemouth, as a one-off rally car that had its beginnings as a 1952 Sunbeam-Talbot drophead coupé. It was named supposedly by Norman Garrad, (works Competition Department) who was heavily involved in the Sunbeam-Talbot successes in the Alpine Rally in the early 1950s using the saloon models.
It had a four-cylinder 2267 cc engine from the saloon but with raised compression ratio. However since it was developed from the saloon platform, it suffered from rigidity compromises in spite of extra side members in the chassis. The gearbox ratios were changed and from 1954 an overdrive unit became standard. The gearchange lever was column mounted. The Alpine Mark I and Mark III (no Mark II was made) were hand built—like the 90 drophead coupé—at Thrupp & Maberly coachbuilders from 1953 to 1955 remaining in production for only two years with 1,582 automobiles produced. The majority of production (a little over 1,000 vehicles) were exported, primarily to the USA, as left hand drive models. It has been estimated that perhaps as few as 200 remain in existence today.
In the 1953 Alpine Rally four Alpines won the Coupe des Alpes, one of which, finishing 6th, was driven by Stirling Moss while Sheila van Damm won the Coupe Des Dames in the same rally.
Very few of these cars are ever seen on the big screen. However a sapphire blue Alpine roadster featured prominently in the 1955 Alfred Hitchcock film To Catch a Thief starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. More recently, the American PBS show History Detectives tried to verify that an Alpine roadster owned by a private individual was the actual car used in that movie. Although the Technicolor process could "hide" the car's true colour, and knowing that the car was shipped back from Monaco to the USA for use in front of a greenscreen, the car shown on the program was ultimately proven not to be the film car upon comparison of the vehicle identification numbers.
A lake blue "Series II" Alpine roadster is amongst the first on-screen "Bond Cars" when it is rented and driven by James Bond in Dr. No of 1962, most notably in a scene where Bond drives it under a truck to escape from pursuing hit men. It was reportedly borrowed from a local resident, as the only suitable sports car available on.

Congratulations to LSD! for a FTF! the island used for filming

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Tbg lbh fghzcrq?

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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