hillman imp

was the hillman imp a relaent robin with 4 wheels
:D
Imp Sport - The Imp Site

Imps in motorsport

The Imp enjoyed modest success in both club and international rallying. Rootes introduced a homologation special called the Rally Imp in 1964. The Rally Imp featured many modifications over the standard model, the most important of which was an engine enlarged to 998 cc. Notable successes for this model include the 1965 Tulip Rally in which the works Imps of Rosemary Smith and "Tiny" Lewis finished first and second overall.
Imps were also successful racing cars. The privateer team of George Bevan dominated the British Saloon Car Championship (later known as the British Touring Car Championship) in the early 1970s. Driven by Bill McGovern, the Bevan Sunbeam Imp won the championship in 1970, 1971 and 1972 with limited factory support. In UK club racing the Imp variants became highly succesfull in the under 1000cc Special Saloon category, Notable exponents of the Imp in racing include Ian Forrest, Harry Simpson, Ricky Gauld, John Homewood, Roger Nathan, Gerry Birrell, Ray Payne, Chris Barter and many others.
998 cc Imp engines were also used in 3 wheeled racing sidecars in the 1970s and 1980's. Exhaust systems were naturally constructed on a one off basis, and often sporting the Twin Weber twin choke set up. A number of sidecar crews raced Imp engined outfits at the Isle of Man TT races, best placement being Roy Hanks in eleventh place in the 1976 TT 1000 cc Sidecar.[1]
The engine proved flexible and very easy to tune. The overhead camshaft design meant that the head could be flowed and ported to allow the engine to run at high speeds. Useful improvements in power could be gained by replacing the standard silencer with one that impeded the exhaust gas flow less and with better carburettors. However, in adapting the design to suit modern mass production methods, Rootes had left the engine somewhat more fragile than its Coventry Climax parent, hence any serious tuning must inevitably be accompanied by reliability modifications such as replacing the cylinder head gasket with gas-filled Wills rings.
 
this is my dads imp as it stands it's now mechanically finished and the body work is rust free so it is nearing completion
DSC00058.jpg

DSC00059-1.jpg

DSC00060-1.jpg
 
Doesnt time distort your memory of things. Actually navigated in rallies in one of these, and always liked the look of them. 40 years later it doesnt look so flash.
loved the cars, my last one was a heavily modded sport version, it had the same body as the stilleto/california versions, but had the 998cc rally engine(with some mods :evil:), front rad, adj spax all round and wheels that were way to wide as it used to chew the doughnuts in the drive shafts up very very quickly so i got pretty good at changing them :D. Finally sold it when family came on the go and it ended up as a hill climb car.

Nice little movie i found the other day :)

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkX44uFsgE0[/media]
 

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