The IMPact of poor choices - the Hillman Imp Story 

I had an Imp some years ago, and I loved driving it; the handling was superb. One night I was trying to outrun a Ford Granada behind me, I would lose them easily on the bends, but they would catch up on the straight. Then they put on their police lights and pulled me over, fortunately it was all very amicable.

Worked on a building site during the summer school holidays in 1981 and my payment was a 1960’s white Hillman imp (£50). I learnt to drive in the imp and passed my test in 1982. I drove that car for another 2 years, sharing it with my Mother before eventually upgrading to a bigger engined car. The imp was great fun, steering wheel like a bus but handling was good…between the mini and the imp, the imp was more impressive for me💪🏻

The story of the Hillman Imp really sums up the story of the entire British car industry.

I had 2 Imps and absolutely loved them. They were so easy to throw round corners and wave the front inside wheel in the air while doing so! My friend rallied an Imp with his brother and I spent many long nights working to get the car ready for its next Rally. I used to compete in Production Car Trials in an Imp as well...

My dad had a forest green Hillman Imp. I remember as a kid going with him to pick it up. I also remember there was fear about the aluminum engine and head overheating (which never happened on our car), although the clutch would overheat in stop-start traffic. We loved that car, and my dream car as a student was a clan crusader.

The engine from the Imp was still used into the late 1980's as the power unit for the Rapier missile system. It was used to power a generator to produce the 3 phase supply required.

My dad had a blue one.. apparently I called it the "broom broom'!! no doubt because of the noise the engine made. He said it had a great engine and could cruise at 70mph all day. I also remember our neighbour had a Stilletoe version.. posher version with more dials.. happy days. I can even remember the day we went and changed it for a Hillman Avenger in 1974... now that was a great car!

My mum was a Rootes sales manageress in Kensington in the mid sixties and as a result we had a Hillman imp. I thought it was brilliant. I learned how to drive in one. I later drove the Mini, I'd take the imp in a heartbeat.

I found one of these 15 years ago in an abandoned garage in Hamilton Ohio. The garage was being torn down. I tried to get it but the new property owner was a jerk about it. I watched them drag it out with a backhoe and proceeded to destroy it and threw the pieces in a dumpster. It's the only one I've ever seen in my life.

I learned to drive in my mum's Hillman Imp and then appropriated it when required, haha. It was a great wee car, great fun to drive on the winding Scottish roads.

Back in the early 70's I had a twin headlamp, coupe roof Sunbeam Stiletto with a tuned 998cc engine, there was twin Weber DCOE40 carbs, loud tubular exhaust manifold, hot cam, ported head etc and the car made nearly 100 bhp on Jon Mowatts rolling road in Basildon Essex when I got Jon to set the engine up. The rev limit was over 8K and with lowered suspension, upgraded brakes and wide wheels and painted Daytona yellow bodywork and with gloss black wheels the car looked brilliant and was seriously quick with it's light weight and 100 bhp and was an absolute riot to drive on the road with the most perfectly controllable oversteer you can imagine, I had so much fun with that little car you can't imagine! If only they came that way from the dealer Roots might have had a real hit on their hands like Ford did with their RS2000 cars

Despite all the disastrous decisions that destroyed this little car, overall it was very cool and interesting 👍

I have a 1970 Hillman Super Imp. I use it whenever the roads are dry and it’s great! Loads of fun, exempt from everything and very efficient. I love it!

Great video. I recall a holiday back in the mid 70's, my sister and I were probably 8 and 9 and squashed in the back of our gold colored Imp sitting atop a suitcase or two. We were traveling in convoy with our uncle and aunt and their kids, they were fortunate to have a big Ford Granada. I recall the Imp really struggling up the hills on the M62, my uncle had to keep stopping to wait for us. The journey from Lancashire to Scarborough can be done in less than a couple of hours but I recall it taking us most of the day! Got to say the car had a lot of character. I now live in the US and I see them popping up for sale every now and again on specialist websites.

What a fantastic channel this is, so professionally done, bags of research and interesting footage - this should be on TV!!

Drove an Imp this weekend just gone for the first time 34 years at the Drive Dads Car experience in Derbyshire. Though it seems very basic by modern standards it was a fun experience more akin to a giant go-kart and I have to say out of the three cars I drove (XJS and MG Maestro) it was the one that brought the biggest smile!

"Coventry Climax" is such a great name....it sounds like something a Connery era James Bond would give Ms. Moneypenny in a broom closet at MI6

Nostalgic. My best friend and I both had Singer Chamois. Really loved that car.. HUL 736C . Funny how you can always remember your early car number plates but struggle to remember your current one!. Nice video, thanks.

Errata: The smallest Mini engine was 848cc, not 875cc. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini Clearly my very simple depiction of the Suez crisis could have been better, and is pretty one sided. More study needed.

Singer Chamois JBH 635C decambered - would love to have it all over again. As long as you torqued to the book you never had a problem - first time I did the shims was 1.5 days second time I bought a micrometer and took two hours! Evidently 4 hours in the garage manual so doing well. Fantastic car - brilliant holding the corners and 80 in third gear-the only thing I could never shake off was the Ford Cortina - but those were the days when you could have fun......

I was always a mini man. Sad end to all the famous UK marques, quality control, labour issues, management issues etc. I remember seeing my first Datsun Cherry and thought then this will conquer all the small cars.

My Granddad was part of the management at Linwood, he had little good to say about the workers, as you'd imagine, and said that any car produced on a Friday or immediately before the lunch break was completely unsalable. There was also apparently instances of workers literally throwing spanners into the works because they wanted a break. Safe to say I did not hear a fair or balanced account of life at Linwood, so it's interesting to hear it fleshed out a little! There was a BBC documentary about it in about 2007, he was interviewed and his views had not mellowed with the passage of time.

My Dad competed in the British Saloon Car Championships in 1972 with a Hillman Imp, winning the private entrants award that year. Really enjoyed the video, thank you

I remember one of these way back in 1974 when I was looking for my first ever car I ever bought with my own savings. It was a green E reg used one in a dealer's lot. I was granted a test drive, but the first thing I had trouble with was getting it started as it sat on the forcourt for so long the battery went dead. A quick replacemnt later I was driving round town going through the gears, or should I say grinding through the gears because shifting it was like stirring a bucket of bricks (It obviously needed a replacement clutch). Needless to say I didn't buy it, but shortly later bought an H reg Ford Escort instead. I loved the Escort and was a little sad to have to trade it in for my first ever new car, a new R reg Fiesta later on. 😄

One reason the Imp was rushed into production: the Linwood plant was located where it was to bring jobs to a depressed area. At some point they had announced that Imp production would start on a certain date, so they thought they had to keep their word.

I took my test on one of these. It was rally/race tuned and could''t use third gear in built up areas. It was incredibly fast. I failed on improper use of gears. The examiner had never been in a fast sports car.

Great work, Big Car. I have had a few Imps, and still have a modified Imp Californian. Great handling cars when lightly modified. The gearbox is still the best I have ever used. I can change gears so quickly that it sounds like like a motorbike or a modern dual clutch gearbox.

Had one in the 80 s in London. Loved it. Never let me down, even when I accidentally filled it with diesel.

My uncle had one and when he visited us, the asked my dad to have a look at he car as his drivers side floor was damp. On looking under the car, he found the problem… there was no floor; it’s was only the mat/carpet that was stopping his feet from hitting the road! I kid you not

My brother was running a business for most of the 90's and early 00's rebuilding New Zealand assembled Imp's and exporting them back to the UK and to Japan and the US. Made a good living at it, exporting ~15 cars a year. Funded his classic racing fix where he ran a race Imp, beating Minis constantly.

I always enjoy reading the comments here from people who once owned the car from the video and their experiences. Being 43 years old and not British, I rarely ever saw an imp, but its angular shape with subtle curves in to me looks more attractive than that of a mini. With its layout and engine, it must have been much fun to drive I think, especially the imp sport and the stylish stiletto. The conclusion I can come to then must be that the imp is probably the greatest missed opportunity in British car history, as its design had so much potential. A rear engine-layout wasn't that outdated either in 1963, if you consider that a year later Fiat and Skoda still launched new models with it.

I had a Singer Chamois (fancy Imp) when I was at college. Great car except when the roads were wet. With the engine in the back there wasn't enough weight over the front wheels for good traction going around corners. Had to change the clutch twice, but the engine was so light I could pick it up and carry it. Sold it for £40 when I moved after college. Wish I had kept it in storage.

My first car. It was of course, pretty rubbish. But like your first love, your first car is always somehow special and memorable.

Old guy who worked in the same engineering company as my dad had one these running into the late 90's. He hand made replacement parts. He was quite old by then. He was an interesting guy. Manx TT rider in his youth, his parents were refugees from the Chinese civil war and moved through Europe, and we're in Berlin when Hitler came to power. They soon moved on to England!

I loved my Imp. I remember one of the first things I did was paint a yellow Starsky and Hutch go faster stripe. I then proceded to fit a roof rack and loaded with a frame tent and a load of camping gear went on a tour of Europe through France, Belgium, Luxembourg. Switzerland and in to Italy ending up in Naples then it was off back into France and up into Andorra ending up south of Barcelona then back to Blighty. This was with the wife navigating and 2 kids crammed into the back. The only problem was a blowing exhaust which was temporarily fixed with a gun gum bandage. An amusing moment was coming out of Andorra into Spain when a grumpy spanish border guard insisted on me getting out of the car and opening the boot for inspection. The look on his face as he saw the engine and not the load of smuggled contraband he was hoping for was priceless. Like other comments I was a bit surprised no mention was made of the Clan Crusader which was always a dream car of mine.

Actually, they drove very well and were great fun. My brother and I had a modified one that we used for trials… it had excellent traction, and sprint racing… once the technique had been learned for driving a rear engine car, they cornered brilliantly.

My dad had a blue Hillman Imp in the early 70's in Rhodesia, after collecting me from school one day and on heading home in a split second we both noticed a wheel shooting off in front of us, my Dad said where the hell did that come from? Next thing we knew the front of the Hillman collapsed on its right hand wheel hub/axle...we walked the rest of the way home! Fond memories.

My aunt had an imp. She said it was prone to spontaneous outbursts of adverse handling. I think it may have been broken, or her driving!

My parents had one - from what I remember of what my mother remembered: it stopped on the first red light on the deliver day and had to be towed back to repair; it stopped the day after the warranty expired (or fully payed?) and never ran again. It was lots of fun: me and my brothers often kneel behind the back seat for small trips :)

I remember, distinctly, seeing the first example of an Imp in my local Rootes dealer showroom, at launch. The car was finished in Powder Blue, or similar, and the first thing I noticed was a jagged hole in the metal of the roof on the off-side, where it curved down to the windscreen, just above the A-pillar - about an inch long and three eighths of an inch wide - which clearly showed from a distance (like someone had drawn on the paint with a black ‘Sharpie’!). The edges of the metal were covered in paint, so the hole had obviously been present at the time of assembly… And this was the car ON DISPLAY 🥴‼️ No wonder hardly anyone bought it!

Thank you for this, I have a used toy corgi replica Hilman Imp from the 60’s. I was lucky to have my Dad to give me a version of its being while he was still alive. You sir have cleared up the whole picture with this detailed video. Thank you from South Africa 🇿🇦

I had a MkII 67 Imp and loved it! I could throw that little car into corners like it was on tracks; hooking the front inside wheel up. It was a pig on icy roads as the arse end would try to catch the front end. I did a really fast run from Dunedin to Wanaka in mid summer; the car was really hot! I pulled into a garage told him to fill it up, NO water. I went for a piss and when I got back the forecourt attendant was just finishing topping up the radiator!!!!! I went ape shit at him, turned on the engine and it immediately pumped water out the exhaust! After that I carried a head gasket set in the car, my tool kit, overalls and SWAFEGA. I got to the point where I could change the Head Gasket on the side of the road in 20 minutes! Yes, even in the dark! I got tired of the hassle and traded it in for a 67 HB Viva. Still miss the we Imp - great little car.

Saw one at a church’s British car show a few weeks ago. Inside the engine compartment was a sticker which read: Roots Group; proudly turning owners into mechanics for over 60 years.

My dad had a Hillman Huskey. I was a baby and used to sleep on a blanket on top of the engine cover... No pesky child seats in those days. How did so many of us survive?

I always wondered why the Imp had an opening rear window with it being rear wheel drive and having the boot at the front. Thank you for finally solving the mystery for me

I have owned two Hillman Imps (the second was bought by my father-in-law for my then wife). They were terrible. In no particular order: heating didn't work as the hot water had to travel the length of the car through rubber piping which clogged up; the water pump was huge - because the radiator fan blew air in the direction of travel, and consequently was very inefficient; the Hardy-Spicer (rubber donut) couplings were constantly failing, causing the half-shaft to flail and destroy the brake hydraulics; the linkage to the gearbox was sloppy, making engaging reverse nearly impossible; the front was so light that at 70mph it would lift, negating the steering (I had a couple of paving slabs in the TINY front boot); some sick bu66er put timing marks at TDC AND 180º which, until one knew about it, made timing the engine after repairs interesting; and the automatic choke never worked. I'm sure that I have forgotten some items in the mists of time.

My mom had a red "Sunbeam Imp" in the mid 1960's. I learned to drive and got my license in that car. I remember it being fun to drive and economical on gas. That was important to me as I was reasonably expected to cover operating costs when mom let me use it. Repairs however were absolutely outrageous and parts difficult to find, at least in our area. By comparison a friend had a Austin Mini (Called an Austin 850 at the time) and the cost of similar maintenance was a fraction of the Imp. Mom eventually replaced the Imp with an Austin 1100 and drove that until she gave up driving.

Well-sorted Imps and Minis are both extremely good to drive. Given enough power to reach 100mph with the right suspension and brakes there was little else in the 60's and 70's to match them on fast 'B' roads. I feel very lucky to have enjoyed owning several of both marques and hold them in equal high regard.

I came across one plus side for the front boot when an Imp was involved in a head-on collision near Exeter with a Mk 2 Cortina. The Cortina driver died but the elderly couple in the Imp survived with serious cuts and bruises. Luckily they were going on holiday and the boot was full of their suitcases and holiday clothes, probably the next best thing to airbags!

My mum learned to drive in one of these, at the time they were doing roadwork's in our street, you had to turn into the neighbours ,then drive up the nature strip to access our house. Unfortunately mum found dad's instructions lacking, so after turning into the neighbours she put it into a tree. All low speed so not bad, but she panicked, missed the break pedal and instead floored the accelerator, essentially trying to make the car climb a rather large tree. Being rear engine'd made dad's backyard repairs much easier, a couple of large blocks of wood and a car jack soon had the front fairly well straightened out, way simpler than if the motor was up front, as that would probably have first involved pulling the fan out of the radiator!

When I was growing up, pretty much nobody had a car. One family over the road however had an Hillman Imp! It seemed incredibly glamorous and unbelievable that anyone on the street could afford such a thing. I’ve never driven one, nor even been in one but I’ve always had a soft spot for the HI.

It's a sad story, that of the poor old Hillman Imp. It was a great idea and design, just badly executed. It was a cool looking car, (especially in California or Stiletto guise), with great handling and the all alloy, SOHC Coventry Climax engine was a fantastic little power plant, far more sophisticated than the A series. I'm not sure if I prefer it to the Mini, I'd have to drive an Imp to reach that decision. It's such a shame that in the strike ridden Great Britain at that time the poor car never stood a chance, especially when you add all the faults, design flaws and sabotage that came with it. You'd have thought the workers at the Linwood plant would have just been grateful for the employment, but instead they just end up helping to bring the entire factory to its knees in just 10 years. Putting an end to, not only Imp production, but to by far the biggest employer in an already heavily depressed area.

Great vlog as always! I remember that car. All UK made car were gone after the oil crisis. Rover and Chrysler was selling in very small numbers. Anything UK GM became Opel. Ford UK became Ford Germany. Cortina I and II yes. III became Taunus IV became Granada. Funny story; my father always wanted a Jaguar. One day he had money to buy one. When he found out that you could not fit a set of golf clubs in trunk he bought a MB 500 SEL, a W126 from 1984. I miss that car! Sigh!

First car I every owned. Bought it for £165 to learn to drive in. Passed my test, bought something newer and left the Imp to rust on my mum's driveway for nearly two years. Then one day, out of the blue, I was contacted by a "cherished" registration plate outfit, who offered to take the vehicle for £250. Decided to try for a cheeky £500, but happily to settled on £300.

Every automotive historical video from the 70's, US or Europe. "The OPEC Embargo" "And then they went on strike". "Quality control was between rare and non existent."

My metallic gold Imp took me and my two kids on many a camping trip. Great car, loved adjusting the valve clearances!

I loved my 1967 metallic blue Hillman Imp. A terrific car.

My Mum had one of these in my early teen years. It was a great little car, really quick with its racing design engine.

i also had an imp some 40 years ago it was extremely reliable and used little petrol, the handling was the best i had seen i also had a triumph spitfire and a mgb gt the imp was better, but its in the snow it was awesome the clutch went and i sold it for more than i paid for it to a guy who wanted to race it, i think it was the weight on the rear axle that made its handling so great.

When I was young, my dad bought the Hillman Husky, the estate version. It was forever overheating when fully-loaded. Curious beast for sure.

just shows that unions went from a good thing with actual good reasons in the early 1900's to a bunch of powerhungry people that simply could not stomach actually working to earn a living.

This was my first car I owned after migrating from England to Australia. I drove it from Adelaide to Mt.Gambier and it seemed quite O.K. However, one day it broke down in a big way. The aluminium crankshaft snapped and my mechanic advised me not to bother fixing it, but to replace it with a more rugged and dependable car, so I bought a 1963 EJ Holden. It was a cheap rough car, but still much stronger than the old Hillman Imp.

Great video. It chronicles another abysmal failure of British management. Donald Horne wrote in his book, The Lucky Country, that Australia was ; "A lucky country, run by second rate people who share in its luck..." The same could very well be said of the U.K. To quote another British old boy "There is no such thing as bad men, only bad officers." Despite all of this , great little cars with great little engines from a time when we were lucky enough to have a great diversity of cars on the roads, unlike the boring clones on the roads today.

I bought a used Imp (possibly bearing Sunbeam logos) for US$350 here in California, about 1970,, intending to convert it to alcohol. The workmanship was not bad; it was missing altogether. I redid the brakes (easy) then addressed the accelerator cable. The front end of the cable hardware was misaligned such that the cable rubbed against the hole in the chassis. (There may have been a piece missing.) I immediately sold it for approximately what I'd paid for it. Happy to see the last of it. I will say, however, that it might have been fun to drive if everything worked as it was supposed to. I'd lost faith in it, and from this thread, I suspect I did well to get rid of it.

Many, many years ago I had a 'race' with one in my 1969 Austin Mini 1000. The roads were wet and I was in the middle lane of 3, he was in the left hand lane. I was just in front when we came across a cyclist in his lane, he jinked to the right then promptly spun around. Fortunately he did not hit anything but he was very fast for a such a small car with a small engine.

If only they had built it in Coventry. The Linwood work force also killed the Avenger and Sumbeam.

Really enjoyed the video, thanks. My mate, Mike, who looked a bit like Marty Feldman had an imp when we were in our late teens early 20's, late 1970's. We had a long weekend in Dorest near Lulworth Cove and travelled from NW London near Uxbridge. Mike usualyy carried a spare cylinder head as his experience was they used to warp easily and cause huge problems. He would just replace the head and drive on if this happened. On this particukar trip he did not have one as the car was full with our stuff. On the way down the head started leaking. By the time we needed to go home it was really bad. As we drove along we looked like a steam engine, we had to make sure the ngine did not tirn off or it would not start due to water in the cylinders. So we stopped at every oppertunity to put water in the radiator and fill up bottles while the engine kept running and a huge steam cloud built up at the back of the car. Amazingly we got home and Mike managed to get to his house and later fix the car. These are now of course happy memories but at the time it was a bit of a worry. I laugh at young peolpe now who dont have a clue about the cars they are driving as the cars are so reliable, can often only be fixed at a dealer if they do go wrong, often for something so silly its not funny eg a circuit to the petrol injectors being cracked and needing replacing, no idea of "points", capaciotrs, solenoids, tuning to get the timng on the points correct to make the engine run well, just call the AA (NRMA in OZ) , get a tow and replace a circuit. No nursing of cars now. I am not sure what I prefer, the fun of tuning doing it yourself etc or just press a button and go with very few breakdowns, for which you just outsource. Solution ride a great motorcycle, I think. Always liked the imps.

Growing up in the 70s we had one of these in 1972,great car I remember playing with my Matchbox Rolamatic tank on the rear shelf which was ridged and bumpy,before that we had a Chamois and my aunt had the Chamois too ,we loved these lil cars,thanks for a great upload,wishing yourself,family,friends and fellow fan's health and happiness,as an old youngster I still luv the Hillman Imp on the Forza Horizon 4 game set in England.

Thank you for this document ! From a young french point of view, I remember this car ! Anyway it was obvious that it was far less attractive than a mini for example .. The bizarre thing was the opening rear window for a hatchback ! As a french I was fan of Citroën's strange and odd gimmicks but the shape and style of this car was .. ugly for me, worst than the Zephyr tail fins and the front of the Citroën AMI 6😵😅 Merci beaucoup à toi 🙏

Had a neighbour who was a shop steward at Linwood, and I remember my father poking fun at him for always going on strike. They thought they were indispensable

One of my favourite cars and I've never even seen one in person. My father, who was a mechanic for decades, has the absolute opposite opinion of them.

The Hillmam Imp ( actually a Singer Chamois) was my first car ever in 1976 and I loved it. No problems at all and fun to drive.

What a great video, and it's wonderful reading the comments and stories below from those who have/had Imp(s) and especially, the things they did to them that today's regulators would have a conniption over. My sister (in Australia, where we emigrated to) had one and for the most part it was reliable and good to drive. A friend of mine had an Imp GT and had the engine "warmed" - I think with the twin Webers that Rotax 636n mentioned. I'm so glad I lived through an era where cars were a source of passion, fun, and excitement. not the anodyne conveyances they are today.

Had an Imp as my first car in 1972 and loved it and had some fun times back then with it

Concrete slab in the 'boot' in the front essential but loved it in my college days, I could take the engine out in an hour to fix things but the heater was a disaster piping water from the rear to the front in uninsulated pipe! Fond memories though!!!

Personally, I like the look of it much more than a Mini.

As others have mentioned, head gaskets blowing was a common problem with Imps. Despite already knowing that, my friend's sister bought one in the late 1960's and sure enough after a few months, it happened to hers. My friend and I changed the gasket for her on the front drive. It's a long time ago but I don't remember it being a particularly difficult job.

Thanks for this video - I much enjoyed it. My first car was an Imp. I bought it for £120 and, at it's first MOT it cost me - £120 !! I did really like it and have retained an interest in the Imp for the over 50 years since. I also remember the dominant, I think, "Fraser Imp" cars in the saloon car champsionships. I had it at the time I got married and some of my "Friends" found it and "Decorated" it before my new wife and I drove off to Blackpool for our honeymoon. You related the business story well, it is a shame, as they were actually quite good to drive and reasonably practical.

My Dad worked at a Rootes dealer, and our family of 8 (yes, eight) went on holiday from Portsmouth to North Wales in a Hillman Imp! Dad driving, mum in front passenger seat with my baby brother on her lap, myself & large Gran in back, I had a sister on my lap, and two more sisters 'in' the rear parcel shelf!

I bought a new Singer Chamois in 1966 (I think). It was a "D" reg. The Chamois was the luxury version of the Imp. Loved that car. Even towed a small caravan with it. I sold it on 1968. The next Imp was a second hand one about 1973. It sat in my garage whilst I was working abroad until 1978. Then I was using it to commute 20 miles into Stockport over the hills from Derbyshire in the winter of 78/79. Bad winter but it got me through when other vehicles had been abandoned at the side of the road.

I had a Sunbeam Imp Sport for several years in the early 1970's. I loved it, and preferred it to it's rival the mini. It was great to work on. You could get the engine & gearbox out in about 1/2 an hour. Having said that, the original block on my imp suffered from blown head gasket syndrome, with deterioration of the liners. My dad had a mate in the Rootes dealership and got me a discounted brand new short engine (Block+crankshaft+pistons) which with a clutch set cost me only £100 - can you believe that? I also had a roller bearing collapse in the gearbox and I split the gearbox and replaced the bearing myself with the aid of a magazine article and a Hayne's manual. The bearing cost me £9 I think. Traded the car in against a Lotus Elan +2S - another load of trouble! Still have the Haynes manual somewhere.

The Hillman Imp was my 1st ever race car..(Autograss) and i loved it so much. Such a zippy little motor and reasonable handling. Great traction off the line on muddy fields with the motor slung out the back but lacking a few cubic inches in the 1350 cc class. I soon fixed all these little niggles by grafting a 351 Cleveland into a Stiletto shell. Mid mounted class 7 (unlimited saloons). Lots more fun and sounded just bloody awesome.... After scaring myself one time too many I went to open wheel specials and sold the shell on to my friend who fitted a supercharged rover v8 with twin turbos. With the combination of turbo lag and runaway boost it was an excellent tool for removing fence posts and scaring marshals.... Eventually the turbos went and he developed it into quite a successful weapon ... It was fitted with a removable plate in the roof to adjust the carbie. Last time i saw it He was sat on the roof tinkering with the jets...I wonder what the designer would have thought if he could see it thundering around the track with two 30ft rooster tails coming from the rear wheels.............

I love your classic technic car. Brings back great memories!

Had one in 73 in Singapore when I rode a Honda 750. Used the Imp as an umbrella during the Monsoon season. Actually it was a fun little car but used to overheat due to the extreme tropical climate and lack of maintenance. It was given to me by a departing colleague and only had about three months road tax left on it and which I did not renew. Found a fitting home when it was gutted, floor pan removed and the lightened shell space-framed and then fitted over an Elfin 600 F2 for track use. Wonder what happened to it. Oh, the memories. Those were the days.

I bought a Forest Green Singer Chamois - a posh Imp with a bit of plastic wood stuck on - in 1968, a 1964 model some four years old. I didn't intend to buy it - I went out with the intention of purchasing a Mini - but my father talked me into it on the basis that the Chamois was a classier product. Thanks, Dad, for giving me the benefit of your technical expertise. It was, of course, a disaster, saddling me in the four years I owned it with the usual problems: water pumps, seized steering, multiple clutches, terminal body rot - and the transaxle blew up on the M62. Radiator failure and cylinder head gaskets also featured prominently. One thing in its favour, however, was the bargain price of a new exhaust - £2.50 for a complete system, one of the few advantages of a rear engine layout. I got £30 for it when I eventually relinquished ownership which, to be fair, only cost me £83 a year in depreciation, probably a little less than a Mercedes S class would shed over the same period. But of course the never-ending catalogue of repairs cost me many times the figure lost in depreciation. My next car was a second hand Viva HB, which felt and drove like a Bentley Continental by comparison. Do I feel any retrospective yearning or affection for the Chamois all these years later? Sadly, no.

I had the Husky in late 70's, very useful as I was fitting out a boat at the time. My main memory is that it seemed to use as much oil as it did petrol, but it was fun to drive and reliable so long as I remembered to top up the oil regularly 😁

I was born in 1970 in the island of Malta. When I was young my father used to take my brother and I every Sunday to an old RAF airbase and where car and motorbike races were performed by entusiasts. I remember very well Hillman Imps taking part in these races thrown in the midst of Mini Minors, Ford Escorts and Ford Capris, Fiats 600 Abarth and Simcas. Those were the good old days.

My first car when I passed my driving test aged 17 in 1985. So the design was already 22 years old by then. I remember the engine being quite revvy & peppy with a sound all it's own. Mine was a '73 model & I guess they'd ironed out out all the faults by then as it was reliable, at least in the 6 months leading up to me writing it off losing it on a wet bend in the road one night lol.

my dad spent many an hour trying to fix his sisters Imp, in fact I have old pictures of him trying to squeeze his 6'3 frame into the engine bay.

my first car, second hand but smashing in white with light blue interior. Remember going to Brands Hatch to see a saloon car meeting, along with a friend who was a Mini fanatic. Was delighted to see the McGovern Imp lead a mass of MInis over the finish line ! Happy days.

My first car in 1976 was a green Sunbeam Stiletto. It was almost impossible to drive due to a very very sticky throttle, but I loved it. I actually thought the shape of the Imp was more appealing than the mini. It broke down on the way to a Rod Stewart concert in Leicester, had to walk two miles to the concert and then had to crash at a students hall overnight before calling the RAC in the morning. Memories.

Great documentary on not only the Hillman Imp, but the Rootes Group. Starting with a newly-married employee couple who were on different shifts and strike-action was taken to pressure management to place them on the same shift, the workers and union used strike-action at their whims and fancies. At the time when the Japanese were emerging as a player in the car manufacturer and exporter scene, Rootes was in trouble, and had to be rescued by the American Chrysler group. But production of Chrysler cars also involved sourcing components from different countries, hence affecting time and cost. Reliability was also a big issue. While the Dodge Avenger/Chrysler Avenger/ Dodge Arrow/Plymouth Cricket/Talbot Avenger had fair success worldwide in the 1970s after the Chrysler takeover, It was the long-drawn funeral for the Rootes Group and a massive blow for the British automobile industry. Trinidad & Tobago. West Indies.

I love your dry humour! Great video, I remember these from when I was little but didn't know much about them, so thanks for another interesting video.

Around 1965 one of the members of our local dune buggy club built a tube frame buggy with an Imp drivetrain. It was super light and skimmed over the sand.

My first car. Had to put sandbags in front to stabilise it in windy conditions

In the late '50s and early '60s I had a flat next to one of the Rootes engineers on this project - when he wasn't at Linwood! He recounted that the original low density alloy engine castings leaked oil overnight, so design was changed to higher density. This made the rear end heavier and resulted in design changes to the front wheel geometry, hence the alarming toe-in and camber angles, all of which affected the car's stability and dreadful oversteer - a sack of potatoes in the front helped! I had a Mini and one of our 'sports' was to find an 'Apex' (pre-production name for the Imp) on test runs around the local roads and lead it at high speed into trouble! Much as we did to Humbers and Standards into the roundabouts on the Coventry ring-road. Great fun!

I had a 1973 Hillman Imp in Prairie Wind (Posh name for Beige!), Good little car, my Pal had the Sunbeam Imp Sports. I had trouble with the water pump, clutch and headlamps leaking, nothing too serious, it also had an oil thrower on the crankshaft, instead of a seal, so used to use a fair bit of oil. It got through King Pin bushes pretty regularly, I always knew when they'd gone, as it used to follow any rut in the road, which could be dangerous and often embarrassing! But it was really fun to drive and really economical to run.

The Imp was a blast for this U.S. sports car kid to drive. I don't remember reliability problems. But we had to repaint it in Mustang yellow. The factory dull blue, along with its tiny size, caused it to get hit in traffic, over and over. I don't remember what happened to it. Oh - and it had extreme positive camber in the front wheels - a quick fix for oversteer, which I would have preferred.

Interesting video. The imp engine was also used for motorcycle/sidecar racing making over 80 BHP (until regulations changed and 600cc was max engine size for 'road racing') It was also used in powerboats making over 130 bhp due to the engine temp being much lower I remember reading around 80 deg C as it took water directly from where it was being used I'm not really a car fan but I do like to 'play' with engines of all types

I remember those cars. I was in Sydney Australia for RR in 1971...