How Just One Mistake Destroyed The Hillman Imp, The Mini's Greatest Rival

Comments · 17

• CH

  @Chrisjb-g7l · 1 month ago

  From memory, that is not an image of a Hillman Imp.

  2

• GE

  @geraldtalbot6400 · 1 month ago

  My late father drive a Humber Hawk, he was a working class man and had it before I was born. I drive a Comma van for work and remember how difficult it was to get it into 3rd gear without cracking your knuckles on the windscreen as the gear lever had a long throw. As. Kid I lusted after a Sunbeam Rapier but have sadly never owned one. We see. To have a knack in Britain of producing the finest engineering in the world and then we just give up and let the Americans take all of the glory.

  3

• BR

  @BrianClarke-y9v · 1 month ago

  I was just once passenger in a Hillman Imp with constantly overheating aluminium engine which made desperate progress between roadside streams. Each stop demanded removal of fiercely steaming filler cap then pouring in more water of whatever poor quality was found. That Imp would not have lasted much longer scorching hands and with anxious seeking for more ditch water.

• ME

  @mervwhitney7229 · 1 month ago

  Very interesting. Another good one in the Lost Industries series. As a child in the 50s and too young to drive, I was well aware of Rootes Group vehicles. My Grandfather had a fawn coloured, 50s Hillman Husky with side valve engine and a side hinged rear door. My first car was a Hillman Minx which cost me £40 in 1963. It failed the Mot on rust and was scrapped!. &nbsp;My father had a Super Minx.<br>It is sad to learn how government policy killed another great institution. The pattern is the same, the unions play a part and we lose another. How many more companies will end up destroyed, putting thousands out of work? &nbsp; .

• JA

  @jamesgudgeon4868 · 1 month ago

  In Primary School i remember Riding in a Commer School Bus <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAzafdQPc48&amp;t=3375">56:15</a>

• JO

  @johnmoncrieff3034 · 1 month ago (edited)

  The engineering in the IMP is still valid today in 2026 50 years after it went out of production! It performed as it was designed, to be well above the expectation for a car of its size. Given the service requirements are kept to, it would last as long, if not longer, than its rivals. That is why there is such an enthusiastic IMP car club, with many of them used in motor sport successfully!<br>The Avenger was a far better car than the Ford Escort in every respect other than the engine &amp; unfortunately build quality of the original cars off the assembly line! &nbsp;The same can be said about the Chrysler Sunbeam, which was a brillient rally car given the Lotus engine!

• JO

  @johnmarsh2078 · 1 month ago

  The Ryton works did not press body panels or build car bodies. Bodies were bought often trimmed and painted from Pressed Steel in Oxfordshire. Ryton built the transmissions and suspensions. The engines were built at the Stoke (Coventry) plant. Like most car manufacturers Rootes outsourced large parts of their cars to outside firms like Girling, Salisbury, Lockheed, Lucas . The Humber Road factory assembled kits of parts into complete vehicles The Labour governments of the 1960s ruined the British motor industry. They used Planning to scotch (literally) enlargement plans and force Rootes to move to Scotland where the workforce was militant and unskilled. They made BMC buy pressed Steel which made shells for Rootes, Rover, Jaguar, Triumph, and Volvo. They forced the disastrous marriage of Triumph and BMC to form the BLMC. Rootes was forced to buy Pressed Steel (Scotland) and transport bodies down to Coventry to be built into cars and to transport engines and transmissions up to Scotland to build Imps!

  1

• EW

  @ewanbaxter9199 · 13 days ago

  The handling was terribly light at the front. You could get a friend to sit on the boot to lift the front wheels. Owners tended to carry bags of sand in the front to keep the front wheels down

• ST

  @stevedodd6773 · 1 month ago

  And a paving slab in the boot &nbsp;to keep the nose down

• JO

  @johnmoncrieff3034 · 1 month ago

  Linwood was the result of politicians and civil servants not knowing what they were foysting on the industry. Because they had no idea how the motor industry worked or the logistical nightmare they imposed on the manufacturer! &nbsp; They looked at it on paper and saw what they thought was an answer to the problem! &nbsp;A problem they in part had created by not investing in the modernisation of the ship building industry on the Clyde! They had allowed the Unions to gain too much power and allowed them to strike at will! &nbsp;Then once they had the factory where they wanted it there was a government change and the new one stopped the funding that had been promised! &nbsp;That in turn allowed Chrysler into the ring and they eventually took over the company (which included the IMP they did not understand or even want in their range, so refused to give it the investment it required.) !!

  1

• RI

  @richardmcintosh2445 · 1 month ago

  Just one mistake? &nbsp;Corporate? &nbsp;Government? &nbsp;Design?<br><br>No .. there were lots of mistakes. &nbsp;I work as a design engineer. &nbsp;The water pump flaw, for example, was just poor. &nbsp;It shouldn&apos;t ever have happened.<br><br>But for me that&apos;s the wrong way to look at an Imp. &nbsp;As a product leaving the factory door, so much of it was really rather appealing.

  1

• GR

  @grahamkearnon6682 · 1 month ago

  Why no mention of war years, did he have a doctors note ?