A visitor asked: How do you verify that a Tiger is for real and not a fake?

The easiest way to identify a “real” Tiger is to determine if it has been authenticated by the TAC process.* If the car has been TAC’d, you’ll find a numbered decal behind the cubby (glove) box. TAC stands for Tiger Authentication Committee; a group of inspectors using inspection criteria to authenticate a Tiger body shell as being original (i.e. produced on the Jensen assembly line).

The STOA (Sunbeam Tiger Owners Association) has a list of currently authenticated Tigers.

Many Tigers have not gone through this process yet so you are now left to your own  visual feature assessment.   It’s too complex a process to get into here. What I would like to do is put you in touch with a knowledgeable owner in your area. Please advise general area where you need support and I will provide you with a contact person.

Or join our Forum and poke around to see if others have had similar questions.  You don’t have to be a club member to take advantage of the great info being shared in the Forum.

* TAC stands for Tiger Authentication Committee; a group of inspectors using inspection criteria developed by STOA to authenticate a Tiger body shell as being original (i.e. produced on the Jensen assembly line).

Comments (7)

Hi Is there a free site where I can go and enter the JAL numbers or Vin numbers on a Tiger to see if it is Authentic. I have found a few listed Registrys on websites but they all say that they are not complete. I am not sure what state the car would have been authenticated so I am wonderin if there is a person or registry we can access that may oversee Tigers Registry all throughout the nation insted of just the registrys of certain areas. Also I don’t know if these registrys are updated annually or how these associations or clubs handle the registries but the Tiger I am looking into to find out if it is real belonged to my boyfriends dad who passed away in 2005. They lived in Missouri at this time and after he passed my boyfriend moved his mother along with the car here to Northern California. So you see my problem is that if the talk is true that he was a member of a tiger club, which one or how do we find out because the clubs probably cancel memberships if they are not contacted about a members death Please contact me so I know what to do because they want to sell his 66 Tiger and need to know the facts behind the car so they don’t get ripped off!!!!

Rachel, you’ve got some good questions. The truth of the matter is that Rootes records on the creation of Tiger models does not adequately exist to simply go by JAL or VIN numbers. Therefore, over the years a group of dedicated individuals has created a system by which a car can be evaluated to determine if the car in fact was created on the production line that produced Tigers. The procedure is called TAC (Tiger Authentication Committee).

First check behind the glovebox for a TAC plaque saying that the car has already been evaluated. If there is no numbered plaque there, then the car has not be evaluated, or was previously evaluated and did not meet the authentication.

The best thing to do is contact the local TAC inspector in your area, through the TAC chairman. The STOA (Sunbeam Tiger Owners Association) is the developer of TAC and keeper of records.
http://www.stoa-tigerclub.com/contact.html

[editor’s note: At the bottom of this page: sunbeamtiger.org/index.php/tac-menu/tac-faq, you’ll find a list of senior TAC inspectors. Hope that helps.]

I here get it Tac’d…but what I need is a serious list of things to look at before purchase to make the best determination possible that it’s a real Tiger !!

For your own security I would only use the jenson build records for confirmation of tigers as it is the only accurate record of production vehicles supported by Coventry motor museums records. Norman millers book although quite accurate has errors such as English cars that have never left the uk and apparently reside in America. U.K. D.V.l.A records and customs and excise computerised imports and exports in uk and usa support this. Vin plates and tags can be removed. documentation is key in uk, not vin plates, and cannot be stolen as the owners are on record, also they have the correct ID information on them. Not reverse traced, incorrectly in some cases.

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