I owned an Imp when I got married, bought it in 1971 loved the car, my wife was very happy driving it. I have a classic Mini sitting in the garage and would love an Imp to go with it.
My uncle who was a mechanic hated the Imp, but a young lady I knew loved her Imp. My uncle hated the way the engine was designed. He said that when you undid a bolt on the engine, a pile of nuts and washers dropped on to the concrete. The young lady, who knew nothing about car mechanics loved her Imp and did her own repairs. She said that repairing the Imp was no more difficult than following a recipe. She would lift the aluminium engine out of the car and put in on the kitchen table. She would prop up the manual and repair the engine as if she was following a recipe. Both my uncle and the young lady agreed that an Imp needed frequent repairs.
In my eyes it was better proportioned than the Mini and it looked quite cute. I had a Mini, reluctantly, simply because it was very unlikely to get an Imp in Switzerland. Hillman was never a mark that sold well here. I appreciated the aluminium engine with a lot of envy. And because I was very deep into aviation, I had no worries with the technical aspects of the Imp.
The 875cc all alloy engine was the logical choice because it was the only small engine which Rootes already had in production. It was a water pump engine used on fire engines. Its all alloy OHC design was way more advanced than anything the opposition had, giving the car a 90 mph top speed and mine did 50 mpg on long runs 4 up. If only they had sorted it properly first it could have slain the Mini. The Mini might have been £60 cheaper but BMC were not making any profit on it, so the Imp was probably as cheap in reality. Mine was an oldish s/h one, bought for £175 and it ran like a dream for the 2 years I had it. The driving experience was far better than my father's Mini, which was a puddle jumper by comparison. The only problem I had was replacing the brake master cylinder, which entailed removing the petrol tank first. I would love to own an Imp now.
Owned a couple of these and I liked them from a driving perspective - nice to sit in, light and spacious inside, quite nippy with a revvy little motor and went round corners like a go-kart! I never kept one long enough to get involved with the head warping problems etc though! As usual in those times, the British worker had a large hand in fuc*ing it all sideways!
I had a new one in 1971 .It was the base model and I had to pay £15 extra for a heater. That did not include a fan ! So you had to wait ages to get any heat through the car. But it went well, handled tidily and cost fifteen shillings to fill up. But the head gasket went and boy that meant a big bill. Sold it soon after .
Naughty QUENTIN WILSON sarcastically narrating this! (As usual!) Manufacturers should have SUED for defamation. Such reviewers MUST have damaged SALES , by damaging CARS' REPUTATIONS!
IT WAS A GREAT WEE CAR HAD IT BEEN BUILT PROPERLY BUT IT WAS BUILT IN THE WRONG FACTORY IN THE WRONG COUNTRY NO PRIDE IN THE PRODUCT THEY WERE PRODUCING
the cars were never built in glasgow as linwood is renfrewshire get your facts right quentin both my grandfathers worked in the linwood plant very often i hear blatant crap about linwood and build quality but nobody mentions how it changed company from rootes to chrysler too talbot who shelfed the brand so us in uk would have to buy french small cars which at time were crap compared too what was being built in linwood another case of thatcher selling out british industry to the french now we have no mainline brands making uk cars i think its a sorry state of affairs linwood plant was rushed into production and thats why faults dont blame linwood because owners wanted torush it into production plus in scotland wage differance was a joke
Gotta love the designer lying about all the luggage capacity up front! No wonder he designed a money pit for the people he worked for. Honesty really is the best policy!
Yup. The dark was designed and largely owed her components to facilities elsewhere in Britain... which is why the car was less cost effective to build than could've been the case, had the government not had Rootes by the nads re' planning permission to expand Ryton.
