Hillman Imp: Ұлыбританиялық инновациялық автомобиль

Linwood, Scotland
Australia
Costa Rica
| length = Coupe after much advance publicity, it was the first British mass produced car with the engine block and cylinder head cast in aluminium. Being a direct competitor to the BMC's Mini, it used a space saving rear engine, rear wheel drive layout to allow as much luggage and passenger capacity as possible in both the rear and the front of the car. It used a unique opening rear hatch to allow luggage to be put into the back seat rest. It was the first mass produced British car with the engine in the back and the first to use a diaphragm spring clutch. The baulk ring synchromesh unit for the transaxle compensated for the speeds of gear and shaft before engagement, from which the Mini had suffered during its early production years. It incorporated many design features which were uncommon. Among them were a folding rear bench seat, automatic choke which was rare on compact cars outside the United States until the 1970s, and gauges for temperature, voltage and oil pressure which have been largely omitted since the 1950s in favour of emergency lights. This unorthodox small/light car was designed for the Rootes Group by Michael Parkes (who later became a Formula One driver) and Tim Fry. It was manufactured at the purpose built Linwood plant in Scotland. As well as the Hillman marque, there was a series of variations, including an estate car (the Husky), a van and a coupé. Between August 12 and 14, 1964, a Sunbeam Imp sports sedan (ZT 86 20) completed the First American Rodding Magazine sanctioned endurance run and broke a world record in the process, previously set by Erwin George “Cannonball” Baker in 1933, driving from New York City, to Los Angeles, California, covering 3,011 miles in 48 hours, 9 minutes, 54 seconds at an average speed of 63.7 mph. The Imp gained a reputation as a successful rally car when Rosemary Smith won the Tulip Rally in 1965. That led the Rootes Group to produce a special rally conversion of the Imp under both the Hillman and Singer marques, known as the Imp Rallye. In 1966, after winning the Coupe des Dames, Smith was disqualified under a controversial ruling regarding the headlamps of her Imp. The Imp was also successful in touring car racing when Bill McGovern won the British Saloon Car Championship in 1970, 1971 and 1972. Considered ahead of its time, the Imp nevertheless suffered from reliability problems, which harmed its reputation and led to the Rootes Group being taken over by Chrysler Europe in 1967. The Imp continued in production until 1976, selling just under half a million units in 13 years.

Over the life of the car, Rootes (and later Chrysler UK) produced four body styles. The original saloon was introduced in May 1963 and ran through to the end of production in 1976. It has an opening rear window, making it effectively a hatchback. The opening rear window is intended to make it easier to load the small luggage area behind the fold down rear seat. The fold down nature of the rear seat was itself unusual in small car design at the time, being more often associated with larger upmarket estate cars. In 1965 a van badged as the "Commer Imp" was introduced. A coupe, the Imp Californian, was introduced in 1967 at the same time as the van's pressings were used to create an estate car, badged "Hillman Husky". Several estate car prototypes using the saloon body with extended rooflines were tried, but never offered to the public. Instead, buyers choosing the estate had to settle for a van derived car with somewhat unusual styling. Both the van and estate ceased production in 1970. In an attempt to interest a wider public when sales figures fell well short of the intended 100,000 cars per annum, several badge engineered derivatives, such as the luxury Singer Chamois (launched October 1964), and the Sunbeam Sport (launched October 1966), with a more powerful twin carburettor engine, were offered with varying degrees of success. For marketing reasons the Singer variants were sold as Sunbeams in many export markets, even before May 1970 when the Singer marque was discontinued altogether by Chrysler UK. In some markets, such as France, the "Sunbeam" name was used on all British Rootes products, including the Imp and the Husky. The coupe bodyshell is similar to the standard body but features a more shallow raked windscreen and rear window which, unlike that on the standard bodied cars, can not be opened. The attempt at a more sporty design did not translate into better acceleration or top speed figures and the aerodynamics of the standard saloon are actually slightly better. The new body style made its first appearance at the Paris Motor Show in October 1967, with the introduction of the sporting Sunbeam Stiletto. The coupe body had also appeared, with less powerful engines, in the Hillman Imp Californian announced in January 1967 despite the general price inflation affecting the UK. Chrysler stewardship was blamed by some for the demise of the Imp in March 1976, after fewer than 441,000 had been built, but the entire Chrysler Europe operation was not a success and two years later it became part of Peugeot. The Imp was one of Britain's longest running production cars with a 13 year run, despite lower sales in its later years. Its place in the Chrysler UK range was taken the following year by the Chrysler Sunbeam, a three door hatchback based on the Avenger rear wheel drive underpinnings. Both cars continued to be produced at the Linwood plant until it closed in 1981, after just 18 years in use. The Ryton assembly plant continued in operation until December 2006, when production of the Peugeot 206 was switched to Slovakia.

Approximately half a million, half of this number coming in the first three years of production. The Imp used a derivative of the Climax FWMA engine whereas the Lotus cars used an FWMC engine which had an entirely different cylinder head.

The engine proved flexible and very easy to tune. It was an overhead camshaft design, which permitted better air flow than a standard OHV engine. As with all engine heads, it could also be flowed and ported to allow better airflow at high engine speeds. Useful improvements in power could be gained by replacing the standard silencer (muffler) with one that impeded the exhaust gas flow less and with better carburettors. However, in adapting the design to suit modern mass production methods, Rootes had left the engine more fragile than the Coventry Climax model from which it had been derived. The Imp enjoyed modest success in both club and international rallying. Rootes introduced a homologation special called the Rally Imp in 1964. It featured many modifications over the standard model, the most important of which was an engine enlarged to 998 cc. Notable successes for this model include the 1965 Tulip Rally in which the works Imps of Rosemary Smith and "Tiny" Lewis finished first and second overall. Imps were also successful racing cars. The privateer team of George Bevan dominated the British Saloon Car Championship (later known as the British Touring Car Championship) in the early 1970s. Driven by Bill McGovern, the Bevan Sunbeam Imp won the championship in 1970, 1971 and 1972 with limited factory support. best placement being Roy Hanks in eleventh place in the 1976 TT 1000cc Sidecar. Imp engined outfits are still regularly championed in classic racing. Andy Chesman won the 1972 World Hydroplane championship using an Imp engine. He bought Imp specialist company Greetham Engineering and designed a wedge head to increase the 998 cc engine to 125 bhp with twin 40DCOE Weber carburetors. He also fitted a spacer on top of the wet block to accommodate longer cylinder liners, increasing capacity to 1220 cc. At the BP sponsored Windermere records week in October 1972, he raised the R1 Class water speed record to He was killed in 1998 in a power boat accident, still holding the record.