This 1953 Sunbeam Alpine was in the hands of its former keeper for 23 years, moving into the seller’s care in November 2022.

The purchase was the culmination of a long search for the right car – and that didn’t just mean its mechanical condition or the state of its bodywork, because the seller’s got a sufficiently keen eye that he’s seen Sunbeam Alpines he didn’t like the shape of – and one’s that he did.

Like this one, which he says is “the best and most beautiful I’ve seen” .

Hyperbole? Not at all because he puts the slight variations down to the car’s handbuilt nature, with a series of seemingly small differences adding up to something more than its parts.

Which makes sense; after all, if faces can vary drastically because of small variations, why not cars? And ‘OOF 844’ wasn’t just a pretty face, because the rest of it made good on the promise the svelte shape hints at.

Sadly, ill-health means he doesn’t have the time or energy to bring it back to a condition he’d be happy wit...