Imps!

I've recently been bitten by the Imp bug. For some reason I need one.

Where are they? How much do they go for?

I can't seem to find any for sale in the USA.

Anyone have any advice?

I race against three Imp-powered Ginettas on a regular basis and they are the Bee's Knees to race with for me......perfectly matched to my racing Spridget.

If you slide to about 2:40 on ~this video~ you'll see me dicing with #38 Ginetta (owner:John Sambrook). John tells me that the tooling for the Imp motor was bought by Peugeot and that there are plenty of late 90s Peugeots that use an improved version of the Imp engine....so replacement engines aren't too hard to come by (at least in Europe). His car has a Peugeot-built engine.

We did a feature on an Imp a while ago and, yeah, kinda rare in these parts. Still, I remember that Tim came home with one several years ago. If I remember correctly, it left the same day, too.

Any leads here?

http://home.comcast.net/~impfected/implist.htm

You don't happen to recall which issue had the Imp feature, do you?

I'd love an Imp. Wish I bought the one that Tim had, but just didn't have the cashola.

They are around, but rarer in the US than Europe since only the first couple of years were sold here. I've had a couple US spec Imps and also had likely the newest Imp in the country... a late '73 Hillman version.... by this point even the base models were using the Sport head, so it was a bit stronger than my US spec base versions.

Stock, the base Imp will walk away from a 998 Mini with a Stage 1 kit... though I think the Mini is the better handler.

Performance bits (which really, really wake up even the stock engine) are expensive (Sport extractors, Sport intakes, carbs, etc) but the basic stuff isn't too bad.

The dealer than imported my '73 lost money on it selling it to me.... then I just about couldn't give it away when I decided to go in a different direction.

Then the next week all sorts of people are asking for them! if you bide your time, you'll find a solid one (rust is a real worry on these... my first one looked perfect outside but had no floors or firewall left!!!)

Bill

The Imp motor in a Ginetta is especially easy to work on! LOL

There's a guy who lives about a mile from me in Seattle who's got two, one of which appears to be daily driven. If you are serious, email me your info and I'll put a note on his wiper to see if he knows about any. hanspnw >ampersand< gmail.com

The Imp was rather like taking a diamond (the engine) and sticking it in a pile of shzt (the car).

That swing axle abortion was less than fun to drive - and I've owned 3 of them, 2 LHD and 1 RHD.

In Britain the 998 cc Rally Imp engines were available and made putting up with the annoyance of the lacklustre chassis worthwhile.