Vintage Thing No.40 - the Hillman Imp

If we had a republic in Britain the Hillman Imp might have had a better start in life. Its launch was rushed so that Prince Philip could visit production under way at the new showcase factory at Linwood in Scotland. It wasn't really his Royal Highness' fault that the Imp was not adequately developed. In fact, if we'd been a republic and suits at Rootes would probably have got the President of Britain in on the same date.

As it was, the Imps soon developed a poor reputation for fertility and unreliability. I can remember, as a car mad tax of about six or seven, being shown in him by my father at our local garage. This was Solway’s, now the Town & Country Nissan dealer at Marazanvose on the A30. "That," he told me, "is the worst car ever made."

He'd just been talking to the mechanics of getting our Anglia serviced.

Roll forward to the summer of 1981. I’d had my driving licence for nearly a year and was about to start a course at Falmouth School of Art. My mum said she would buy me a car for the daily journey. We weren't exactly flush, you understand. My father had died of cancer the summer before and I guess this was my share of his life insurance money, although nothing was ever said about this at the time.

She did attach some conditions, however. The car would have to be cheap, economical and insurance group one and this was in the good old days when we only had eight insurance groups. To these attributes I surreptitiously added the quality of tuneable. Research soon threw up the Hillman Imp as the prime candidate.

On paper it looked really good. It was the only overhead cam engine in its class at the time. With trailing rear independent suspension and a unique design of low-pivot front swing arms, the Imp could be made to handle really well. The Imp had been largely designed by Tim Fry and Mike Parkes who were determined to make this little car handle well. And Mike Parkes went on to race Ferraris. At the time, I didn’t think it looked anything special but with time its looks have improved and I think the Imp Californian coupe looks especially good.

It may only have been 875 cc but it was an all alloy power plant and very light. And it could rev, too. I also knew that it was really a Coventry-Climax engine that had been de-tuned for production. All I would have to do to make it go faster was to replace the go-slower parts. This seemed much easier than adding go-faster parts to a Mini.

With a bore and stroke of 68mm x 60.37mm, the 875cc engine was nicely over square but there was the option of re-lining the block to allow 72.54mm bores and 998cc. And when I read about Paul Emery’s Imp tuning exploits in an old Car Mechanics magazine, I was sold. He could wring over 120bhp from Imp engines and, at great expense, developed long stroke cranks that made 1150cc possible with a 75mm cylinder liner.

Over the summer holidays, I worked as a pump monkey and general dogsbody at Solway's Garage and when the staff heard I was going to buy Hillman Imp they were scandalised. But, with the confidence of youth, I would not be swayed.

"There is something like 300 years of motor trade experience in his garage, "said Mister Austin Richards the boss, "and none of us would ever buy Hillman Imp."

"What about Paula's Imps?" asked Barry, his son.

David Paul ran the local machine shop and was a motorcycle dealer. His grass track racing Imps were world famous in Cornwall.

"Paula's Imps?" exclaimed his father. "Paula's Imps! They're no more Hillman Imp than you are!"

"Look," said Andy the salesman, "I've got a lovely Peugeot 204 and you can have that for £500. Not only that, I'll give you -- give you -- a months guarantee on parts on the gearbox. I can't say fairer than that, can I?"

Actually, those were not his precise words but that's how they sounded to me.

Only Leonard, the body shop man, was not reduced to dangerous levels of apoplexy by the mention of the Hillman Imp.

"Bill Solway went on a course at the factory," he told me, "and he still didn't think there were any good."

But by then the deal had been done, even though I'd ask the vendor point blank if the car was a "ringer." This was trade slang for two wrecks cobbled together. I don't know why I asked him this because I didn't think I was a ringer. But, in the twinkling of an eye, he changed from being quite personable to extremely agitated. Fortunately, my mum smoothed things over. Subtlety was not one of my strong points back then.

Here's my Imp. It wasn't my first car - I think it was my fourth - but it was the first roadworthy one. Some things never change.

As soon as I got my Hillman Imp, I really began to learn about car mechanics. In this I was aided by a very good friend and neighbour, John Holland, who had worked at Solway's. He even gave me the remains of his old Mini van to weld into some of my other cars (see photo). And whenever I took a cylinder head to Dave Paull’s for machining, he would always ask, "How’s auntie?" because he lived next door to my Auntie Margaret in Zelah.

But when I went to Coventry Polytechnic, my Imp wasn't working again and remained off the road for two years until my industrial placement when I began to earn my first proper wages. By then, I also had access to a post office savings book and discovered that Talbot Special Tuning department in Whitley still sold Imp competition parts. I later discovered that the knowledgeable, friendly and avuncular chap behind the counter was none other than Tim Millington, who subsequently wrote the bible on tuning Imps.

By now, Chrysler had sold its European factories to Peugeot. I can remember thinking that this somehow didn't feel right. American owned firms like Ford and Vauxhall were okay but the French seemed so foreign and didn't even speak the same language. Looking back, it was a taste of things to come.

When it came to choosing a new big valve cylinder head, Mister Millington steered me towards a Wills ring head that Talbot Special Tuning had on special offer that week. Wills rings are hollow rings that fit into machine grooves in the cylinder head around each combustion chamber. They are gas filled so when the temperature increases the gas expands, increasing the sealing pressure when a conventional head gasket would be giving up the ghost. As at that time Talbot Special Tuning were discontinuing competition parts of the Imp, I was able to get a very good price for this special head.

Armed with many competition goodies and a decent radiator, my Imp blackened the highway again in 1985 with a 998 cc block, twin Stromberg carburettors and an R17 camshaft. I later joined the Imp club and bought some disc brakes for the front-end is the original drums were prone to fade. These discs were acquired for answering a for sale ad in the Imp Club mag too late.

"I'm afraid the ones advertised have gone," explained the vendor, "but I've got alloy racing ones that are available still, complete with new kingpins. I don't suppose you be interested in these would you?"

The resulting ensemble on lower Monte Carlo springs and good radial tyres was brilliant, although I missed hanging the tail out right, left and then right again when negotiating roundabouts on cross ply remoulds. The weight of the engine at the back could still make it little tail happy and I span it once or twice. The cross plies slipped more easily but gave far more warning of break away than the grippier radials. In the end, the brakes and handling proved so good I had also had problems from oil surge and the bottom end became very rumbling.

So I took the car off the road and turned it into a special. More about that some other time. Looking for a bigger, faster car without cooling problems (!) I bought a Triumph Dolomite Sprint, which I also still have. More about that another, other time.

I still have all go faster goodies as well as several Imps that they could fit with a little time and money but they're all off the road moment. Success in my self publishing ventures will see them darken the blacktop once again.

I remember well the light and direct steering, the superb handling, the slick gear change and the willing engine that always seemed to be on song. Because it was behind me, it always seemed to be urging me on, like a devil on my shoulder - an Imp indeed. Those disc brakes felt fantastic, too, and because I hadn't used the larger bore master cylinder used on Sport versions I never suffered from the front wheels locking up. And there was also the feeling, when pulling away from a filling station with a full tank, of driving an automotive hamster with its cheeks full of juice.

Even when without an Imp on the road, I've kept up my Imp Club membership because I've met so many like-minded individuals and made many friends as a result. Quite apart from the common enthusiasm for Imps, we shared many other interests and they're simply a brilliant bunch.

It has occurred to me that I ended up developing my Imp in ways that the factory should have done. When you buy a Hillman Imp, you begin a journey down the road of continuous improvement. These little cars have such potential -- it seems a shame not realise any of it.

After the painful experience of the Imp’s post-launch problems, I think the Rootes suits fell out of love with it. There were problems with the new factory as well as the warranty claims and the Rootes group lost a lot of money. The company was eventually driven into the arms of Chrysler, as the American corporation made a bid for globalisation.

Some people cite the reasons for this take over as the Imp’s poor sales and the logistical problems of having Linwood so far from the rest of Rootes’ manufacturing base in the West Midlands, but these were only part of the story. The Imp sales record wasn't actually that bad and the government had offered substantial financial incentives to build a factory in Scotland. I think the Rootes group suffered the same problems as BMC but, being that much smaller, they went under sooner. Both companies relied too heavily on the shrinking market that was the British Empire and didn't perceive the importance of selling their cars on the continent where production volume, build quality and innovation were freely embraced.

I'd love to know what the Americans made of the Imp. Did they write it off as their Rootes colleagues had? Did they fall in love with it again when they tried the competition only 998 cc version? Or did it look too much like the original Chevrolet Corvette, the rear-engined car that Ralph Nader vilified as "unsafe at any speed"?

They could have done so much for the Imp. All go better goodies of today -- 998 cc engines, disc brakes, bigger radiators -- where never available as production items. Rootes tried to maximise the return on its investment by offering some alternative body styles that included coupe, a van and an estate car but eventually resorted to various badge engineered variants like the Sunbeam Stiletto and Singer Chamois. Chrysler gave the range a minor facelift but this was really so that it could be built down to an even lower price. Holy writ from Detroit was "big cars, big profits" but just see where that big profits attitude has got them in 2009!

It strikes me that the Hillman Imp is the kind of Vintage Thing with which you enter a symbiotic relationship.

This is the deal. The Hillman Imp will turn you into a development engineer if you turn it into the car it always should've been.

So together you’re stronger.

To an offer like that, it would be just rude to say no.

Vintage Thing No.39 - the Gillie

Continuing the occasional theme of Hillman Imp off-road thingies, this device is probably the ultimate. The Gillie was designed around 1970 by the Rootes group and endowed with hub reduction gearing and a shorter wheelbase. This combination gave it exceptional off road performance but made it a bit slow on the road. It also hadn't been consciously styled by the Rootes Group stylists so had a kind of honest-to-goodness lack or pretension. This photo is from a newspaper article supplied by Gary Henderson via Franka's excellent site. You can read more about the genesis of the Gillie here.

The Gillie never went into production and remained unique. After a brief period on Lord Rootes' country estate, the one-and-only Gillie fell into obscurity. There were tantalising glimpses of it by Imp aficionados from time to time but it led a secret existence unrecognised for many years until recently, when it turned up - like so many things - on Ebay. And by now you'd never believe that it was the same vehicle.

It's been extensively "pimped" and while it would look out of place on Lord Rootes' estate, and would probably frighten the horse more than my Llama ever did, for a sensational seventies party this thing has to be the ultimate. Petrol-finish round glasses, a head band, long hair, droopy moustache and loon pants with flares to match those rear wheels - and you'd still be under dressed.

But before all that (necessary) frivolity there's quite a lot of work to be done. There's a gaping void at the front where an automatic Metro engine and gearbox once lived and at the back is another hole where an Imp engine would've been and only partially filled by a fuel tank.

There can't be many cars that have been re-engined at either end.

The Gillie has found a new owner in the form of Ricky Walden of Daventry who was pleasantly surprised to find what an incredible survivor and piece of history he'd acquired.

"I wouldn't know half of what I know now if it wasn't for James Henderson and Tim Morgan (Imp Club enthusiasts par excellence). I'm going to keep the body the way it is because trying to re-create what it used to look like would be a long and trying process. I'm slowly restoring it and swapping the engine over to the back. The bloke who had it before thought it'd be a good idea to stick a Land Rover fuel tank in the back (with an Imp fuel sender unit bolted to the top of it!)."

To provide an accurate read out no doubt.

"I'm going to spray it as close to it's original color as I can get.

"It's still got part of a Mini sub-frame in the front. The current "engine bay" had to be made wider to accommodate the Metro engine. It looks like quite an unskilled job using bit of old Imp floorpan.

“The hub reduction gearbox was thrown out with the arc. It was built to cut the top speed of the car down but to enable it to climb quite steep hills. I don't think the gearbox exists anymore. I think it was a one off.

“From what I can gather about 18" has been cut out of the body to reduce the wheelbase. Pretty much after the front seats, there’s the bulge in the floorpan /chassis to accomodate the engine. It’d be interesting to park an Imp next to it to get an idea exactly how much the factory removed and to compare notes.”

In the photo of the Gillie in its original state, some of its panels look familiar to those of us who have chopped them up or undertaken extreme welding experiments on them. But they're all covered up again now after a succession of owners have had a go at realising a dream of theirs using the Gillie as a basis.

I just think Ricky's vision for the Gillie is the clearest of all. It certainly looks wild, actually, although I can't say I really like it but it'll be a BRILLIANT laugh to drive!

It's still a shame that it's been cut around so much but it's morphed into something even weirder than the original rather worthy concept of the Gillie and what Ricky’s got now is still – like an amp that goes up to eleven – even more unique.

Make that an Imp that goes up to eleven.

I remember a Ford Cortina Mk1 when I lived in Kent in the 90's that must have been customised in the 70's. It had all the old custom mods like murals and sun strips. I hope it still survives because it was a perfect period piece. Nobody does that to Mk1 Cortinas these days.

“I found the wide Dunlop racing wheels at the back quite appealing. (They're about 14" wide.) It looks a bit like a Hummer at the front I like to think. The purple colour didn't really do it for me. I liked the idea that this would really be something I can get my hands dirty with. Now I'm Imp-obsessed and would quite happily fill my drive with them!”

Yeah, Imps get you that way.

Good luck with the re-Imping of the car, Ricky. I reckon once it’s done you’ll get a great reaction when you’re behind the wheel.

A Hillman Imp ghost story for Christmas

It was a dark and stormy night at The Borough Arms on the road between Wadebridge and Bodmin. There were precious few travellers on the roads that evening and we had the usually popular hostelry pretty much to ourselves. There was just me and my friends and fellow members of the Imp Club, John and Sarah Doughty. Outside, the rain beat at the windows, the wind moaned in the chimney and the pub sign rattled on its chains but inside it was warm and welcoming. The fires were lit and after our meal we pulled up the armchairs in a semi-circle and gathered round the hearth.

And, as might only be expected on a night such as this, talk soon turned to the subject of the supernatural.

I happened to remark that I had never heard of a car being haunted. There have been ghost trains and phantom trucks and cars, I said, and I had even heard of a headless cyclist. But while accounts of ghostly cars have often been told, I had never heard of a real car being haunted as a house or a ship might be.

“The well known case of the hairy hands on the Two Bridges to Princetown road over Dartmoor doesn’t count,” I went on, warming to my theme. “That phenomenon affected the steering wheels of many cars and on at least one occasion the handlebars of a motorbike. It was not the cars or the bikes that were haunted but that particular bend in the road.”

At this, I paused. John was looking at Sarah and Sarah was looking at John and they were smiling knowingly at each other.

And this is the story they imparted to me that night.

About a dozen years before, John had been contacted by a widow living in Saltash. Her husband had died some years before and his car, a 1972 turquoise Hillman Imp, remained in the garage. Her husband had loved that car and she wanted to make sure it still worked. John, being the generous and helpful soul that he is, went along to get it going after a few years of standing idle. He soon had it running and drove it up and down the drive to make sure the clutch wouldn’t seize again before she passed the car on.

She was very grateful and became a good friend of the Doughtys. Eventually she decided to sell the car and John checked it over to make sure everything was in order.

A few weeks had passed when she rang the Doughtys up. She was very sorry, she said, but had he done anything to the locks? Nobody could get in it. John went over to investigate. They opened the darkened garage, he squeezed in beside the car, unlocked it and sat in it.

“The lock’s probably worn,” he told her. “The ignition lock on Sarah’s car is so worn the keys sometimes fall out as she’s going along.”

That should have been an end to it but John had a strange presentiment that there was more to this than at first appeared and was not surprised when she rang again with the same problem. To cut a long story short it became apparent that the only person who could get in the car and start it was John.

The owner’s widow wanted the Hillman Imp to go to a good home but advertising it seemed pointless when anyone who came to view it couldn’t even get behind the wheel so she offered it to John and Sarah. They didn’t really want another Imp but it was such a nice one and she was such nice old lady they at last agreed to buy it off her. John took it home and parked it outside his workshop to wait its turn while he finished off some other projects.

It was several months later that John was outside his workshop, working on a car, when he saw a stranger approaching from the lane. He was an elderly man, smartly dressed in a raincoat and wearing a hat (check description). He didn’t pay John any attention but looked around him with approval at John’s Imps outside the workshop. Some were show standard and others little more than spares cars but among them was the Hillman Imp that they’d bought from the widow lady some time before.

John could just as easily have carried on working. He’s always got a lot to do. But – again – something told him that all was not as it seemed. At last, his visitor drew level with him and, before his very eyes, faded into nothing. The Doughtys had kept in touch with the widow and went to see her after this experience.

“Do you mind if I ask you what your husband looked like?” John asked her over a cup of tea.

She hesitated at this somewhat strange question but smiled and replied, “No.”

“Did he wear a raincoat and a hat?”

“Perhaps it’s best I show you his photograph,” was her reply.

Sure enough, the man who had come back to look at his Imp was indeed her husband.

His wife was not in the least bit surprised. “He always loved that car, you see,” she told them.

She’s dead now but the Doughtys still have her husband’s old car in their little fleet. These days, it’s a well kept runabout and John has treated me to a ride in it more than once. But there have been no more sightings of the car’s former owner and never any sense of there being three passengers when by rights there should only be two.

We can only assume that the widow’s late husband, and the car’s former owner, has seen enough to reassure himself that his old pride and joy is in safe hands.

In any case, this remains the only instance that I know of where a car has been haunted – unless, of course, anyone out there knows any different……

Vintage Thing 22.3 - Siva Llama

Some black and white publicity photos of the Siva Llama turned up on eBay a few weeks ago. I watched them after being tipped off about them by Graeme Pearson the editor of the Imp Club magazine. I didn't bid but they've found a good home though because they now appear on Franka's site.

The registration of the car depicted is a new one on me. I have a short list of known cars and hope that this one is an unknown survivor.

There's something that inspires camaraderie between the owners of obscure motor cars. At the ARCC (Association of Rootes Car Clubs) Rally at Blenheim Palace in 2000, I met an affable chap from the Clan Crusader owners club called Jim McEwan. I was attending with my Siva Llama at that particular show and he was fascinated by it. Jim was the club historian for the Clan Crusaders and we had a long and enthusiastic talk. Over the next 18 months or so, he sent me a number of articles that featured a Siva Llama. These weren't just photocopies -- they were the original pages from ancient and long-forgotten magazines such as Car & Car Conversions, Custom Car and Hot Car. This full page image came from some seventies car magazine that he'd plundered on my behalf. I think it originally appeared in Custom Car but isn't adorned by naked women so I could be wrong. It shows the saloon version of the Siva Llama and I hope that this one is another undiscovered survivor, too, that will soon emerge into the lime light and be properly recognised.

The Hellacopters last album

I still can't understand why these guys aren't major league stars, The Hellacopters rock - they really rock - but for now they're calling it quite and going on to other things. I've never seen them live so now I never will but there are many great songs on my iPod that wouldn't exist if it were not for them.

I discovered The Hellacopters by accident. Actually, it was terrorist action. I'd ordered The Flaming Sideburns first album from Amazon but amid all the confusion in London during the tube bombings was sent a compilation from the same record company with a serial number just one digit different. I rang them up and the guy said, "We'll send you the proper album gratis. We've just had some very strange days up here."

So thanks to Al-Queada, I got Pushing Scandinavian Rock to the Man. That must mean me, then. The Flaming Sideburns had one song but The Hellacopters had two. At first I thought they were awful but it wasn't long before I came to appreciate their sheer balls in doing a cover version of Iggy Pop's "I got a right". I was hooked.

At the Imp Club National in Dorset that summer, as so often happens at my car and bike dos, we were sat around the campfires after the party late at night discussing music and I mentioned The Hellacopters. This prompted instant enthusiasm and agreement from my fellow Impers. One in particular, Steve Potz-Rayner, lent me a compilation CD and his Walkman to try out The Hellacopters who, he said, "sound like the Rolling Stones on acid."

I think I've got all their albums now. They were a hard touring band who allegedly hated rehearsing so instead they made up new songs. They liked American muscle cars, too.

So farewell Hellacopters. Thanks for all the songs. May your reputation grow exponentially as a result of this blog entry.