 Rick
McLeod
the owner of Sunbeam Specialties was born in British Columbia,
Canada and moved to California when he was 13 years old. Through
high school Rick and his older brother Doug would always have
their Vespa or Cushman motor scooters torn apart in the driveway.
This progressed to working on cars and larger motorcycles
later in high school. He worked on his younger brothers
Sunbeam Alpine during college.
Rick started
Sunbeam Specialties in 1977 after owning a Tiger for a couple
of years and having difficulties buying parts. Another
member of the Sunbeam Tiger Owner's Association gave Rick
a list of parts that could be purchased at any Chrysler dealer.
When he went to Century Chrysler in San Jose they couldn't
locate any of the numbers on their price list. However,
each number had an "x" before the part number.
It was decided that this was part of the part number.
Now the numbers could be found in the price list. Chrysler
had added the "x" because some of the Rootes (Chrysler
UK) part numbers conflicted with Chrysler's own numbers and
the "x" removed the conflict.
Rick started ordering more parts and selling them to
others in STOA. When the yearly swap meet came, Rick took
a selection of parts to the event and promptly sold $1,800 worth
in one afternoon's work. Things looked promising.
A parts list was published and then a catalog in 1980.
With the help of a loan from a friend he started importing parts
directly from England. Soon Chrysler US was calling looking
for parts for some of their customers as they cancelled the
numbers in the US. Rick's younger brother Phil who lived
in Prince George, B.C. headed over to Spruceland Chrysler there
and started buying up what was in stock in Canada. Later
when they closed they sold all of their Rootes parts books for
$50.
As business grew, Sunbeam Specialties moved from Los
Gatos to Campbell but retained the Los Gatos post office box
there. Later in 1991 a building was purchased on McGlincey
Lane in Campbell where it is currently located. Parts
are sourced from suppliers and manufacturers from around the
world with a great emphasis on supplying parts which are original
or appear original but have some improvements such as higher
quality materials. Sunbeam Specialties is probably the
largest supplier of Sunbeam parts in the world now.
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