HILLMAN IMP AT 60 KEEPERS
This Imp was in CCW 25 years ago, and must be one of the few that still has its infamous auto choke and pneumatic throttle
LES HUMAN HAMPSHIRE
‘My first encounter with the HillmanImp was back in 1991 when my son needed a car after he left college. We bought a very smart-looking one that needed some mechanical faults corrected. After we did the work ourselves the Imp proved to be a good reliable runaround – so much so that it gave us the impetus to join the Imp Club, which led to my son visiting owners wanting to sell theirs and collecting data for the club records.
‘One of the cars he saw in 1997 was a twin-headlight G-registered, low-mileage Singer Chamois that the lady owner had bought new. She had tried to give it to her gardener but he refused it. I snapped it up because it came with lots of paperwork including bills, MoTs, invoices and the original bill of sale. The clutch started to slip on its first long journey for some time; I limped it home, removed the engine and found that the clutch plate was fitted back to front. I re-fitted it correctly and ran the car for another two years before selling it through the Imp Club in 1999. I was re-united with the Chamois and its owner last May when I attended an Imp event called Going Dutch in the Netherlands. At this time my son had acquired a very early deluxe saloon MkI christened "Olive” by its previous owner.
‘By now I was getting known as an Imp enthusiast and was offered several from owners who had stored them away as non-runners and just wanted them taken away. Some I passed on to Imp club members. I acquired a very rare 1967 Singer Chamois Sport in 1999 but this MkII lived up to some of the poor reputation that people had warned me about where impish Imps are concerned. A racier camshaft and twin carbs meant that it went well but overheated and the cylinder head gasket failed. I easily cured these problems by shortening the head bolts by an eighth of an inch, making sure that they did not 'bottom' in their holes and clamped the alloy cylinder head better. I came up with this idea when I stripped many fire-pump engines upon which the Imp unit is based.
‘These pumps were produced by Coventry Climax (which also made the Imp engine derivative) for the Home Office Civil Defence Forces in large numbers during the Cold War period. Some later variants had the actual 875cc Imp engine. The Home Office sold off most its stock in 1969 following the demise of Civil Defence. Later these pump engines became available online and because many of the engines had done little or no running, they survived well and represented good value for money as spares. I drove this Chamois for over 30,000 miles before carrying out a body tear-down, which remains a ‘work in progress’.
‘I bought Olive from my son in 2003. He was the first male and fourth own
