page_title: Hillman Imp
section_title: Imps in motorsport
hierarchical_section_title: Hillman Imp / Imps in motorsport
caption_attribution_description: English: Bill McGovern's Hillman Imp from the British Saloon Car Championship, pictured at the Ignition Festival of Motoring - held at the Scottish Event Campus - on 5 August 2017.
context_page_description: The Hillman Imp is a small economy car that was made by the Rootes Group and its successor Chrysler Europe from 1963 until 1976. Revealed on 3 May 1963, 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, which the Mini had suffered from during its early production years.
  It incorporated many design features which were uncommon in cars until the late 1970s, such as a folding rear bench seat, automatic choke and gauges for temperature, voltage and oil pressure.
  This unorthodox small/light car was designed for the Rootes Group by Michael Parkes and Tim Fry.
context_section_description: The engine proved flexible and very easy to tune. It was an overhead camshaft design, which gave 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.
  In UK club racing the Imp variants became highly successful in the under 1000 cc Special Saloon category. Notable exponents of the Imp in racing include Ian Forrest, Harry Simpson, Ricky Gauld, John Homewood, Roger Nathan, Gerry Birrell, Ray Payne and Chris Barter. To this day Imps still compete on historic rallies in the UK, with the Vokes' car often making it onto the podium in the HRCR Clubmans Rally Championship.
  The Imp was also successfully raced and rallied in other parts of the world, notably Asia, where drivers including Andrew Bryson and Pardaman Singh regularly won saloon car categories into the 1980s.
  The 998 cc Imp engine was also used in three-wheeled racing sidecars in the 1970s and 1980s. Exhaust systems were naturally constructed on a one-off basis.  The engines often sporting the Twin Weber twin-choke set up. A number of sidecar crews raced Imp-engined outfits at the Isle of Man TT races, 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 Webers. 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 89 miles per hour (143 km/h). He was killed in 1998 in a power-boat accident, still holding the record.
caption: Bill McGovern's Hillman/Sunbeam Imp from the British Saloon Car Championship, which won three consecutive titles between 1970 and 1972.
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