But for a misfiring Mini, John Bull would never have set eyes on the Hillman Avenger Tiger that’s been a part of his life for 40 years.
He was running a small repair workshop in Ipswich when a customer brought in the stuttering Mini.
“I opened up the points, and that cured it,” he says, “and then he said ‘I’ve also got this Hillman Avenger, it’s got a little bit of accident damage at the front, nothing too serious’.
“I popped over to see him, and it needed two front wings, a grille, and a front panel. His neighbours were complaining about the thing sitting there and not being moved, and he wanted £400 for it.”
But, back in 1984, an 11-year-old Tiger was probably worth no more than about £700, so John offered £200 with a view to repairing the car and selling it on for a small profit.
“He said ‘I’ll need more than that’, so I said ‘well, it’s been nice meeting you’ and off I went to get in my van,” he remembers. “Then he came over, put his hand out and said ‘OK, £200, it’s yours’.”
But the Tiger wasn’t any old Avenger and, though it took him the best part of 30 years to get the Hillman back to its best, John gradually became attached to a car that put the Ford Escort Mexico in the shade.
His initial plans to sell it never came to pass, and he says he “fell in love with the car”.
“I’m quite proud of how it’s turned out, and there are now only 20 on the road, so it is a little bit special,” says John, now 76, whose father had owned an aqua blue Avenger.
“I’ll keep it until it comes to the point where I can’t drive it anymore, then perhaps I will put it up for sale, but it will be a wrench.”
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After leaving school, John started work as an apprentice mechanic with a Ford dealer in Stowmarket, Suffolk, and bought his first car – a Ford Thames 307E van, based on the Ford Anglia – at 18.
“It was all I could afford, and it seemed like a good start,” he says, moving on to a Ford Anglia saloon, then a Cortina MkI and an Audi Coupe.
After spending some time working at a Ford and Rootes combined dealership, John opened his own repair shop in Ipswich, where the Tiger stayed under cover for many years.
“I was so busy with my garage business that I didn’t have time to do it,” he says. “A chap walked in one day and said ‘what have you got under there?’ I said ‘a Hillman Avenger’, so he lifted it up and said ‘bugger me mate, it’s a Tiger, that’s worth a lot of money now’.”
The Avenger Tiger, named after the 1960s Sunbeam Tiger sports car, was launched in 1972, with a batch of 100 cars placed in showrooms to draw attention to the standard range of cars.
Under the guidance of Des O’Dell at the Chrysler Competition Centre, the Avenger GT’s 1500cc engine was modified with an improved cylinder head with bigger valves, the head skimmed to produce a compression ratio of 9.4:1.
With a pair of Weber 40 DCOE carburettors bolted on, power was up to about 95bhp, all of which produced a Mexico-beating 0-60mph time of 8.9 seconds and a top speed of 108mph.
All of this was clothed in an eye-catching Sundance yellow paint job, with black side stripes interrupted by ‘Avenger Tiger’ graphics before extending across the boot spoiler.
John’s car is an early Tiger II, registered in January 1973, which lost the MkI’s bonnet bulge in favour of matt black paint, and featured twin headlamps and alternative paintwork in Wardance red.
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The car’s marketing claimed the Tiger was “wild”, adding “there’s nothing tame about it”, with a nod to potential motorsport buyers – “a great way to get your racing stripes”.
By the time the model was dropped later in 1973, about 200 Tiger Is and 450 Tiger IIs had been built.
Eventually, John found new wings, a front panel and grille and got the Tiger back in one piece, but it wasn’t until he retired about 12 years ago that the car was fully completed.
“I got involved with the Avenger Sunbeam Owners Club and went to a meeting in the West Midlands,” he says, “just to see what the club was all about.
“The enthusiasm of the club members was quite good and I thought ‘yeah, I need to get into this’. It was a little hobby for me. When I had my car business, I never got up in the morning and thought I didn’t want to go to work, so it carried on from there.”
The Tiger was renowned for its thirst, a less than impressive 19mpg was common, and the first thing the club members advised him to do was change the gearbox.
“They were all saying I needed to put a Sierra five-speed gearbox in it, because otherwise I’d be dipping my hand in my pocket to fill it up with petrol every week. So I did that, got a conversion plate, and it makes it quite nice to drive.
“I also picked up the stripes for it. The secretary at the time worked at a place where they make them, he said he could get me a set.
“I also got a set of wheels. When new, they had Dunlop black and silver wheels on them, but I thought the Rostyle ones looked a little better. I still have the original wheels and I’m thinking about having them refurbished and put back on again.”
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All was not entirely well with the car, however, the engine running rough after so many years off the road.
“I thought perhaps I ought to buy a reconditioned engine, slip it in and we’ll be away,” he says. “I’d retired and had a little bit more time to do these sorts of things.
“I thought I could just slip it straight in and I wouldn’t have the worry or the cost of getting the original engine sorted. But we all make mistakes in life, and that was one of mine…”
That’s because the ‘new’ engine performed little better than the old one, and it wasn’t long before John decided on a compression check.
“The signs were that there wasn’t good compression, so the next thing was to pull the head off and we could feel there was a lip on the bore, so we knew there was wear in the engine, which is bad news because it was supposed to be a reconditioned one,” he explains.
“The only thing that was reconditioned was the paintwork on the outside! It had even got some muck in the sump.
“It was a bit disappointing, and an awkward situation because I got on well with the bloke I bought it from, and I kept putting off doing something about it.
“In the end I decided not to mess that friendship up, so I took it elsewhere and had it reconditioned – rebored, new pistons, and another cam.
“The pistons were a little hard to find, but we did find a set. I had to get an exhaust manifold handmade in Sweden by a club member, which cost me £600…”
With the engine finally running as it should, John has been out and about with his wife Lynda at car shows around East Anglia, including Bury St Edmunds, Bradon, Weeting and Felixstowe.
The couple joined more than 700 other classic cars and bikes – and a number of Sinclair C5s – on the Ipswich to Felixstowe Historic Vehicle Run in May.
“It was sight seeing all these vehicles along the promenade,” he says. “At places like this I often get people saying ‘my dad used to have one of those’, and then when you get down to it he perhaps had an Avenger, but he didn’t have a Tiger. It’s all good fun and quite enjoyable, as long as the weather is good.”
With only about 340 Avengers of all types – those badged Hillman, Chrysler or Talbot – left on the road, it’s no surprise that John says he’s never seen another Tiger.
“There’s never been one at any of the shows I’ve been to,” he says, “and I’ve only seen one standard Avenger.
“There is one guy who lives in Colchester who said he’s got a red Tiger, but it’s in a pretty poor state and he didn’t know what he was going to do with it.”
The Tiger has not only provided John with a source of pride, but it also spurred him on to complete two further retirement renovations, a 1952 Morris Oxford and a 1972 Mini, the latter completed over two years during the Covid period.
“It’s a good fun retirement hobby,” he says. “I’ve enjoyed being involved with cars my whole adult life, and I’ve made a lot of friends through getting parts etc and joining the different clubs.”
Dodging the seemingly inevitable showers for our photoshoot, John puts his foot down to show that the Tiger has lost none of its zest.
“We had it on the dyno at Hangar 111 at the weekend, and it was showing 95bhp,” he says, “although it does need some new jets for the carbs.”
If you should happen to spot John and his Tiger at a show, take a good look – it may be the only one you’ll ever see.
