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Cool car and a great project - I fully understand the "should I?/shouldn't I?" about whether or not to go down the modifying route but, as you say, the significance of this one is its originality and the hotted-up Imp has been done to death. It will be interesting to watch someone simply restoring one to stock(ish) condition. I'm a card-carrying (and car-owning) Mini fan but Imps (and all the badge-engineered versions) are such a riot to drive and they are, as a design, SO MUCH BETTER than a Mini of the same age - as well as about 1/10th the cost to buy these days because they carry absolutely no general fashion cred at all. Early Minis are a work of genius but they're crude, noisy and harsh to be in, they leak like sieves and the engine isn't a patch on the Imp's OHC all-alloy motor. Imps feel like 'proper' cars to drive - they're refined, quiet, comfortable while being the Mini's equal when it comes to handling and roadholding. Both cars were riddled with teething problems and, all things being equal, the Imp should have been the more successful - but it arrived to late and would always be blighted by its ridiculous production line that included three 300-mile train journies. On the occasions I've been out in an Imp I'm always amazed by the reaction they get. I took a Mk2 Super in 'puke yellow' out near Melton Mowbray and virtually had to force my way through the crowd that surrounded it - it seemed that everyone in Leicestershire learnt to drive in an Imp. Interestingly they all also reminicised about how often it broke down...and that one later returned to form by conking out with vapour lock in the middle of a busy crossroads. Imp-tastic!
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Jan 31, 2015 23:57
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GoodbyeTurtles posted:Everyone just loves the drat imp and everyone has a dozen stories about them and how great (yet unreliable) they were, its really interesting and funny. Having spent five hours today scalping my knuckles changing my Mini's water pump I'm now kinda wishing I had an Imp - it looks like a blissfully simple job on one of those!
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Feb 1, 2015 19:22
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mafoose posted:What an awesome little car! Looks like the engine is longitudinal, how does the transmission look? It's a transaxle on an Imp - with final drive actually sandwiched between the engine and the gearbox The input shaft passes along the side of the diff crownwheel, while the two shafts in the gearbox itself drops the drive down and sends it back to the diff. The engine itself is interesting as it's developed from the FW (Feather Weight) Series of engines made by Coventry Climax for powering portable fire pumps, hence why it's so light yet powerful. It was then developed into a respected racing engine and was used in several early Lotus models. Rootes licensed the design and adapted it for the Imp - with mixed results, but that's why they take to heavy tuning so well.
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Feb 3, 2015 12:03
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It looks (and sounds) sweet in that vid. I like the ominous can of (presumably?) top-up coolant in the engine compartment. Also, is it a trick of the camera or something else, but it looks like the fan isn't rotating, although the water pump/alternator clearly is? Is there some clever temperature-sensitive coupling on the fan drive (I can imagine Rootes designing such a thing at great expense, and it working better on paper than in reality? I know your aim was/is to keep this Imp fairly standard but if getting 875cc engine parts is a bitch, I wouldn't think a 998 would be ruining the originality (or, perhaps more crucially, the character) of the car. IIRC it was a factory-offered upgrade kit anyway.
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Mar 8, 2015 23:46
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