COAL № 8: Three More Imps—But Not For Long

 

Today is about Imp again. Sunbeam Chamois, Hillman Imp, Commer Imp van. A few weeks ago there was a COAL about my first Imp, I needed a second chapter because they have been in my driving life ever since I got my driver’s license.

After scrapping my beloved white Sunbeam Chamois in the early 90s, I had no driving Imp for a while. This was not good. I loved to drive an Imp, it is so different to other cars. It had became a part of me so how I could now be without an Imp?

In the ten years I owned the Chamois, I had become kind of an expert on Imps. I had a collection of everything that was said about Imps in the Dutch press, had all the books, I knew the specialists, knew the various types. I knew also what I wanted, not another “Chrysler” era Imp. My previous Chamois (1969) was a Chrysler-era Imp. Now I wanted a “Rootes” era Imp which came before the Chrysler-era.

 

Rootes was a British car conglomerate. It started before the war and began to buy car makes like Hillman, Humber. Later Sunbeam (-Talbot) was added, and in the fifties Singer. They owned truck makes Commer and Karrier. Rootes glory days were late fifities, early sixties but it turned bad soon. Rootes was in a dire financial way in the mid sixties. It needed money so a take-over offer from Chrysler was accepted. In the following years Chrysler would become 100% owner of Rootes. This was good for the short term but it had its negative effects on cars. The make-over of the Imp is a good example.

After 5 years and having acquired a bad name (reliability), the Imp needed a new lease of life – or so they thought. In October 1968 the new Imp was presented. Most visible of the re-design was a new full length plastic dashboard, it looked impressive with many “gauges”.

 

 

But many gauges were not gauges but warning lamps or switches. There were new seats, a steering wheel, new front grilles and badges. Were these needed? With hindsight it is easy to say no. But at the time a fresh, modern design maybe was a plus. And of course they could say the car was now improved and so much better. Maybe it worked for the greater public.

However most Imp enthusiasts now prefer a Rootes era  Imp – an Imp before the Oct 68 changes. These had the nice early “binnacle” dashboard which actually was better ergonomically with special (non-standard) levers.

 

 

The seats were different and seem to have better quality vinyl, sewn together not heat-welded. The carpets were of a thicker quality. A Rootes-era Chamois had real shiny walnut wood on its dashboard and door cappings. My 1969 Chrysler-era Chamois had plastic wood on the dash and doors. Chrysler-era cars feel cheaper everywhere.

 

The Green Chamois

Back to the early nineties: the problem was these cars always have been pretty rare in the Netherlands so it was hard to find one, especially for a cheapskate like me. After months of searching and asking fellow Imp owners a club member was willing to sell a dark green 1968 Chamois. It has been his mothers car and had been standing for a couple of years. It looked nice although one rear wheelarch was rotten. I made an offer and got it.

 

Maybe I was too fast in buying this car. It had the right specs but was not as good as I wished. Being so rare I had to buy it, where would I find another?

A year before I had bought a MIG welder because I was not impressed by the quality of work some shops did to customers cars. Also they were too expensive in my view, I wanted to be independent and be able to do my own repairs. Guus, a friend and Imp fan, lived in a farm some 3 hours driving away, he had a big workplace. I would go there for a week, he would help me with the welding and the idea was that I would help him with some jobs on the farm. I bought new wheel arch, sill and ¾ rear bottom panels  from an Imp Specialist in the UK and got these sent over.

That was a nice week. However no welding was done! On the way to Guus I found out the clutch was slipping badly. This had to be fixed #1. Luckily Guus had a new pressure plate and clutch plate. We removed the engine at his workshop and replaced the clutch. Other things were done on the car and on the farm, we never got to welding phase.

 

 

 

 

We used it for holidays –

These cars are made for the English country lanes, great to drive there. Roads are seldom straight, many corners and hills. The opposite of what we have here in the Netherlands where there are no hills and every road is boringly straight with always the next traffic light already in sight.

 

 

 

We used it for camping –

 

 

 

 

We went to an UK Imp Specialist to have the gearbox changed for a reconditioned one, the gearbox in my car would sometimes jump out of gear. We arrived at his place at lunch time, walked to the city centre for a good stroll and turned back a few hours later – the Imp was ready! Many thanks Malcolm!

 

 

Although the car was running well, its body was not very good. The bonnet (hood) was rusty, a known rust spot on Imps so near impossible to find a good replacement and difficult to repair being double skinned. The doors would need attention at the bottoms. The front corners were rusted and needed repair. That left rear wheelarch still needed finishing. Lots of welding work. I envied other owners with nice shiny Imps, knowing that it would be too much for me to ever get the green Chamois in that condition.

 

 

The Silver Imp

Mid nineties. From the British classic car magazines and the UK Imp Club I saw that cars in the UK were much cheaper compared to similar (if they even could be found) cars in the Netherlands. Why not buy one there and drive it over? I had enough spare parts to convert a Right Hand Drive Imp to Left Hand Drive.

Easier said than done. It was not as easy as it is nowadays where you have email and internet. I choose a couple of ads in the magazines and (Imp) club magazines and enquired by phone. Pretty difficult to find candidates that were not too far away, around London, and available to meet in a time span of a few days. In the end I got three or four Imps I wanted to have a look at. My brother would come along, plus a friend, for a long weekend. This was a fun weekend. My friend owned a fast Lancia Thema, an excellent car for this kind of trip. Well, the first Imp we saw I immediately knew it was nothing. Described in the ad to be in “very good original condition”, it was obvious from a mile away it had partial resprays and dodgy body repairs. The second Imp was a two hours drive away but was worth it. A very nice pastel green Imp Super from 1964. Was sold by the daughter of the first owner. Original paint, very good interior and low mileage. “Need some minor work” said the ad. The ad also said it was driveable. Yes it was as long you stayed in gear because gear shifting was a problem. The “minor work” would include at least a replacement of the clutch (engine out job). So, nice as it was, this was not a car we could drive home. With a sorry feeling I left it there.

 

 

The third car was in London. The owner was the son of a long time Imp owner, and the son had restored this Imp under his supervision. It was a 1972 Imp, in resplendent Silver. The interior was a very rare blue metallic-ish seats and door panels. Door top panels were from a Californian, a bit nicer than the usual Imp ones. The car had some nice extras such as Dunlop aluminium sport wheels which were an option back then. There were also USA type front and rear chrome underriders and spot lights on the front bumper. Overall, this car was in very good order, paint perfect, chrome perfect, interior perfect, no rust anywhere. It also ran beautifully.

BUT! It was a “Chrysler-era” Imp and I really wanted a “Rootes–era” Imp like the green Chamois. Then again, such a good car for not much money? I decided to set aside some preferences and go for the best. Back at home it took me a couple of days to move the steering wheel and pedals to the other side. Now I had a really beautiful Imp, never before I was in the possession of a classic car in such good condition.

 

 

The green Chamois was sold to another enthusiast who wanted a car to restore.

I used the Silver Imp a lot, for my commute to work. Sylvia used it too, she also loved the car. One day she rang from a fuel station (no cell phones back then), the front windscreen was in thousand pieces! I went to the shed picking up a spare windscreen and taped it on top of the shattered one (after creating a big hole in the damaged windscreen). Although I had never done it before, replacing the windscreen was without problems. These old cars had their windscreens fitted in rubber, not glued to the body.

 

 

I had found a small old trailer from the sixties which was repainted, wheel bearings renewed and new tires fitted. I fitted a tow bracket to the Silver Imp and packed the trailer with camping gear.

 

 

 

Off to Wales (UK) we went, with our 1½ year old son in the child seat fitted in the middle of the rear bench. In our small tent, the baby cot would just fit inside.

 

 

 

Then, disaster struck.

 

 

After dinner one night in a good pub, I did not see a car coming from the right. He smashed into the front of our car. The front hood of the Imp flew away and contents of the front trunk were everywhere. Luckily the other car was not damaged much and the driver unharmed. We were very lucky to come out unharmed as well. People arrived at the scene, they were the same people we had a nice talk with in the pub. They said there have been many accidents on this dangerous spot because it is on the top of a hill and you just cannot see a car coming up, only just at the very last second.
These nice people invited us to stay over at their home nearby where we called insurance the next day. We got a rental car, our previously smart Imp was taken away. This finished our holiday, we wanted to go home.

A week later I could pick up the damaged car locally. What to do with it? I could probably get repair panels and do the welding but first the car had to be inspected for distortion. Was it even repairable? I was not sure. Anyway, I was not looking forward to it. It would never be the same again. There was someone in the club who was very experienced with damaged cars and Imps and who was willing to take over the car and repair it. That was the end of the Silver Imp for me, Impless once again.

 

The Commer Imp van

 

 

 

Commer was the main truck make of the Rootes company. They were known for their big lorries but they also made car based vans. The Commer Cob, also sold in the USA, was a van based on the 50s and 60s Hillman / Sunbeam Minx. The Imp based van was just called Commer Imp van, sold from 1965 to 1968 when it was replaced by the (Chrysler era) Hillman / Sunbeam Imp van.

 

 

This actual van had been on my radar since the late eighties when I met his owner, Guus. Guus was heavily into Imps and had been for years, since the mid 70s. He had owned and scrapped many Imps. He preferred Imps because it was one of the few small cars he could drive comfortably, him being 2 meters long (6ft 7in). In the late 70s he rescued this van from a scrapyard because he knew it was one of the last remaining. He was right, because since then only this van plus another (a later Chrysler era version) are the only known remaining LHD Imp vans known. Or maybe not as there supposedly is one in Portugal but I have not seen actual evidence of that.

 

 

Guus restored the Commer to its original bare van specification which meant: no passenger mirror, no passenger sun visor, no opening door quarterlights, no carpet (a rubber floor mat instead), thicker gauge steel wheels, thicker drive shafts. The one thing he did not do was to use the vans unique lower compression engine, he used a standard higher compression engine. His van was shown extensively at many shows and he traveled all around the UK, visiting the Imp factory in Scotland and meeting other (UK – RHD) Imp vans.

When Guus needed move away from his farm in the late 90s, we came to an agreement. I took the van plus some other cars and stuff.

 

 

This car was amongst the rarest of all Imp variants. But it was not a showroom piece, it could actually work for its living. However, as I found out when I owned the van, for me it was not very practical. When I wanted to take the van to shows or meetings, having just two seats meant I could not take my family. Which was a pity because Imp gatherings are all about meeting the people and I wanted to take the family!

 

 

 

When I owned the van, I commuted a lot for my work and even had a company car. If I would have owned the van a couple of years earlier, I could have used it for commuting but that was not a possibility now. I kind of regret that, no real daily use for that well sorted van. When the van had not been used for a year or so I made the decision that it was not for me.

However, this was not the last Imp I owned. Another one came up before I sold the van. It is a car I still own and drive, and have no plans in the near future to sell it. More about that in a future COAL!