This brings back a childhood memory or two, combining the Hillman Imp van, and God’s own country, known to those who aren’t fortunate enough to live there as Yorkshire.
The Hillman Imp van was the light commercial based on the Hillman Imp saloon, sold in North America as the Sunbeam Imp. Paul Niedermayer’s great write up covers the estate car (known as the Husky) and the small van version, initially badged as Commer and later as Hillman. All variants had the same rear mounted 875cc OHC engine, actually taken from a fork lift truck maker but also designed for motorsport use.
This was placed at the rear, with a trailing arm rear suspension, rather than the swing axles seen on Beetles and Corvairs, and as a result the Imp had perhaps even better handling than the Mini. It soon lost out to the Mini though, through arriving 4 years later, having a smaller dealer network and even graver quality issues.
In 1970, my parents bought a 1965 Imp as our first-ever second car to complement a 1966 Hillman Super Minx. On its first school run, it broke down, with some form of drive shaft or throttle cable failure (accounts are varied, but I do know our local doctor pushed us out of the traffic). Undeterred, my parents replaced it with a 1968 Imp van about two years later, which was similar to this one except for its dreary grey paint and small folding rear seat.
At the time, we lived in Wakefield, in the Yorkshire coalfield area (now a very faded remnant but that’s another story), a place where Yorkshire Grit was evident and useful. Yorkshire Grit is not actually a stone, although it is derived from gritstone or Millstone Grit, a coarse sandstone used for the grinding wheels for flour mills and for knives, but is a concise term summing up the determination and perseverance sometimes required to survive and prosper in heavy industry, and a harsher physical and climatic environment than, say, southern England. No link at all to the Yorkshireman’s inflexibility, toughness and general air and capability for “getting stuff done.” You know this guy has it:
So, an Imp van, the first I’ve seen for some years, offering “Coarse Yorkshire Grit” brought a smile, and some great memories. “Coarse” is a nice play on words too; maybe referring to a coarse (larger) grit (stone) or to the Yorkshireman’s occasional verbal expression of frustration or (usually) achievement.
Interesting I havent seen an Imp van in ages though Imps at all are a rare sight now, They are meant to be unreliable though our neighbour when I was growing up had one and had no problems at all with hers at all.
CC has made me a Hillman fan. I like this one as well, so thanks Roger.
They looked like “mini Corvairs”.
Yup. That’s been covered in some depth here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-how-the-1960-corvair-started-a-global-design-revolution/
🙂
Thanks for another great read Roger.The Imp was a better looker than the Mini but never sold in anything like the same numbers,many Imps had their engines used to power racing sidecars before the big 2 strokes became available.
As to Yorkshire it would be a perfect twin to Texas.They’re both right,it’s everyone else who’s wrong!Yorkshire made cars(Jowett) was different from everyone else’s as were the Scott and Panther motorcycles
Yorkshire is similar in that respect to Texas, except that in Yorkshire’s case the facts support all the claims!
And the Jowett Javelin was a wonderful car, well ahead of its time.
The Jupiter was ahead of its time more than the Javelin the other product was the flat twin Bradford Van, Pickup vehicle that was a left over from the 1920s, Someone I knew had a Bradford van underpowered didnt begin to describe the performance, a Fiat Nuova 500 is a rocketship in comparism.
As me ol’ Cockney mum used to quip, “You can always tell a Yorkshireman… But you can’t tell him much.
and for the next CC Clue… 1st photo, top center, red convertible, next to the Aston Martin. Any thoughts? I’m guessing a Ford.
You want to know?
I’ll tell if you want!
It was more of a sales success than the American car of the same name!
“Edsel”? I used to know, can’t remember.
Give me you best coarse answer, thank you.
If you’re thinking Edsel, you’re on the right track.
You’re right – it is Ford.
A Ford Corsair, bulit in the UK in saloon form from 64 to 69, and converted to an open top by a complany called Crayford.Engines were 1.5, 1.6 or 2.0 litre V4.
The styling was based on the Thunderbird.
The Corsair was sold above the Cortina, but wa snot a huge success and was replaced by the Cortina Mk3, whoch went up to 2 litres, in 1970
And like the Cortina, it was originally marketed as part of the Consul series, as the “Consul Cortina” and “Consul Corsair”.
Always thought the Corsair was a handsome beast, even though it shared the same doors etc as the humbler Mk II Cortina.
Was going to compliment you on the great article about the mii corvairs when the discussion went awry and Texas got badmouthed. Oh, well. Good article Roger. If you ever get to Houston look me up.
Thanks!
A hint… it was converted to a convertible by Crayford 🙂
I am amazed they ever sold these in the USA. Here in Australia I saw a few – very few – in my first years at school. I recall one, then new, broken down on a bridge causing traffic havoc. Never knew they made a van version.
I gather only half a dozen or so vans were imported by the factory, there are still a couple around, I drove one (with windows fitted) last year.
Thank you Roger. Open top threw me off. I do remember the saloons in the UK in 1977.
Anyone else remember an early bit of product placement with a Hillman Imp in Man in a Suitcase?
Man with a suitcase, excellent show, watched them all a few months ago. Lots of classics from Britain there.
KJ
Looks like a Corvair sedan delivery!
…sweet little rear slant 875cc alloy engine in these, right? ..taken from a fire engine pump if memory serves… ‘Coventry Climax’ great heritage 🙂 if you abused them it was easy to snap an axle shaft .. ..about as thick as a little finger (a skinny one) ..the Singer Chamois version was a GORGEOUS little machine with delightful design proportions
I don’t think you’d break an axle shaft too often, even the low-spec ones were 7/8″ solid steel. It was more likely that the rubber donut “rotoflex” couplings would fail, especially if the rubber deteriorated due to age or oil-induced perishing. That would let the driveshaft flail around and damage other things.
…perhaps i was thinking of the driveshaft of the Sunbeam 500 inline twin(??) lol …that looked like a length of fine chromed curtain rod dowl
..anyway my first lady friend had a beige Sunbeam Imp and a very steep driveway, she used to rev it to about 5,000 and slip the clutch to reverse up to the roadway ..it was her Imp that gave the driveshaft trouble on a recurrent basis (something in there as you say was ‘letting go’ with a ‘bang’ under the abuse and leaving her with no motive power)
I remember reading these were so hot in testing they had to be detuned for production.
If you go to a classic motorcycle race there’s a good chance of seeing an Imp powered sidecar still winning today.
My friend with the SST has a british made fizz boat powered by a Ford 10, he picked up a Coventry Climax the repower it with, very light perfect in a tiny aluminium speedboat
Even if the styling is heavily cribbed from the Corvair, this comes off as sooooooo wonderfully British to me. It makes me think of something from a scene in one of those Look At Life films that was posted on here recently. The color, the hubcaps, “Coarse Yorkshire Grit”, that it’s a Commer and not just a regular Hillman van… all awesome! I love all Imps and really wish they weren’t such an extreme rarity on this side of the Atlantic.
Well dip me in honey (you know the rest). Never laid eyes on the van before. Not overly un attractive. Must have a high floor level.
KJ
Yes the floor height was set by the rear engine, then the roof height raised to accommodate the no-longer-ubiquitous standard milk churn! I wonder what a modern equivalent might be? Probably a pallet, but that doesn’t come with a ‘standard’ height.
Ah, the Linwood Porsche! Can’t remember the last time I saw one on the road.
Interesting to see, in the third picture down, that the Imp was built by Rootes (Scotland) Ltd. Rootes had, of course, always been based in Coventry, but was “persuaded” by the UK government to build a brand new factory in Linwood, near Glasgow, as part of the national plan to revitalise the old industrial regions*. Rootes didn’t want to go to Scotland, and the costs of the move – not least the impact on quality, and therefore on Rootes’ reputation – contributed significantly to their selling out to Chrysler and ultimately failing.
Setting up a separate “Rootes (Scotland)” holding company suggests that they were always wise to this risk. Had it been appropriate, they could have busted the (Scotland) business and kept going in Coventry. Though the politics (15 years before Thatcher) ensured that this never happened.
*See also Triumph in Speke.
In fairness Rootes a: had no recent experience building a car like the Imp, and so were bound to have teething troubles and b: had to expand production capacity somewhere to accommodate the new model. Planning regulations (sensibly) blocked further concentration of automotive manufacture in the English midlands. Grants were offered to build the new plant in the Scottish lowlands and Rootes snapped up the proffered funding. If they really hadn’t wanted to be in Scotland they needn’t have taken the government subsidy.
The Linwood site was theoretically well suited, with a direct rail link and a local workforce who already had heavy industrial backgrounds. It’s not unimaginable that it could have worked out…
Some odd procedural decisions – such as casting the engine blocks in Linwood, shipping them south to be assembled, then shipping them back north to be fitted to the cars – do suggest that Rootes weren’t really committed to developing a genuine production site away from the Birmingham/Coventry nexus. Of such things was the decline and fall of British motor manufacturing made.
With hindsight, moving to a new site and producing (most of) an untested new design there was probably a recipe for failure, but hindsight is 20/20 after all.
Whatever the reasons, it’s very sad that the Linwood expansion wasn’t handled better. The wee Imp is still fondly and well remembered in Scotland – witnessed by its pride of place in the Riverside Museum in Glasgow (pictured)
Fair comment. My parents worked their way through three Imps in the 60s (we were strictly Rootes), and there were no real problems that I was aware of. Unlike the Capri and Fiesta that followed…
Scratching my head looking at the top photo, it appears to me that someone took a roof from an English taxi cab and plopped it on a 1962 Rambler American body with a 1961 Corvair front end.
Sorry, but never having seen any of these odd-ball cars stirs little interest.
Imps were seen a lot in my childhood in 60s/70s UK.We used to take in lodgers and one of them had a duck egg blue Imp.Miss Turner my favourite Art teacher had a gold Stiletto after the rust monster saw off her VW Karmann Ghia A nice looking car especially the Stiletto and Chamois versions though not a car that’s a lot of good to an Amazon like me but I enjoy looking at them and remembering when I was a girl and seeing them in the 60s and 70s
These look a lot like a late 60’s Simca. Was there any connection?
Simca was the French part of Chrysler who took over Rootes Group in the UK in the 60s.Simca was at one time owned and also part owned by Fiat,Ford and eventually Peugeot I think
No connection between the Imp and the Simca 1000 as the Chrysler takeover of Rootes at least came after it was developed. I imagine the same was true for Simca.
It seemed the Chrysler executives had about as much interest in small cars as Zackman too.
Can’t believe you’re all rabbiting on about cars, Texas and other stuff when our kid’s included a you tube clip of Sir Geoffrey Boycott showing Australians how to play cricket (and at ‘Eadingley, no less).
Was it him or another player of the era who was described as a “corpse with pads” as a comment on his flamboyance and scoring rate?