The reason I had 3 was 2 were for parts to keep the other one going , the regular use one had a hot cam grind, higher compression, twin carbs and extractors, did 115 mph, but used the whole road to do it, both lanes I mean, used to blow the d/shaft donuts all the fricken time, even with bands tightened around them. They were fun to drive, better than a Mini, when you did slides, the back never swung out, the front slid in, was quite hard to get used to .
my gaffer back when i was a lad, spotted three under cover in a ditch on the brae's at the back of linwood with a police presence, apparently all proto types and subsequently detuned, although i believe it was more to do with gasket failure. they where a laugh. tho more of a mini guy me.
As you say, great cars and could have challenged the mini much better if not for a few features. Always wanted a Californian, cool looking car. Pedals had a big offset to the steering wheel I remember and ride- height (and hence big positive camber on front wheels) a compromise as designers made a mistake over minimum headlight height regs.
A friend had one with a Capri V4 and an upside down VW g/box, used to go like a rocket and pull wheel stands apparently, it was before I meet him.
My only experience of the Hillman Imp was using the engines in sidecar outfits....If they ran well they were bloody good, but I found them very temperamental.
My mate had one 20 odd years ago, gave us a lift home from Bristol back in to Nailsea (town close by) and while it wasn't fast (top speed of 70) it did close to 70 round corners as it was lowered and had adjustable shocks all round (spax from recollection) but I might be wrong there....looked like a right shed but handled - really well.
side car outfits, cool. head gaskets where a prob. i can still see the step father out with his honing stone taking the shims down. ahh the good old days.
My Imp broke the throttle cable one winter night. We got home by getting one of the lads hang out of the back window pulling on the broken bit while I drove. Oh how we,(apart from the chosen blue-with-cold-back-window-hanger),laughed....
Yep them were good old days, I see some young people now trying to run and preserve older (pre-over electrickery reliant) cars so they are finally getting the message.
did the same with my malaguty, you can get quite inventive when yer sixteen no cash and want to get out the house :smile:
I could write a short book on the mischief we used to get up to in cars. One of our regular stunts was high speed transfer of all the passengers in the car, from one car to the other, via the sunroofs whilst trying to drive alongside each other. How we laughed.
