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Published on 28 March 2020

In Australia, we only ever officially had imported basic Mk1 CKD kits. Even when our cars were badged imp11 and then imp111... they were only ever (through official importing) mark 1 body shells with early motors and gearboxes. None of our officially imported cars had twin headlights, burst proof door locks or any of the later upgrades. Heaters were very rare and none of our officially imported cars had door bins or turning quarter windows. We did get the Australian imp GT... which had a few upgrades (split rear seat, 100mph dash, floor mounted choke, twin 1.25 carbs, extractors, square edged cylinder block (as opposed to the standard 'curly block'), a stiffened block, a head with bigger valves (usually a 162 casting = Early), an engine oil cooler (AKA 'hedgehog'), 1" drive shafts, door bins, turning 1/4 windows, slotted engine cover and most IMPortantly..... 5 ashtrays. Some had the plumbing for a brake booster inside the engine compartment on the left inner wall, altho few had a booster fitted. GT and later IMP111 had large digits stamped into the chassis rail on the left side in the engine bay. There were many unusual things done by the Rootes Group here in Australia to try and get imps to survive our conditions. These include plumbing the intake air cleaner into the plenum under the rear window and fittind a louver vent each side for air to get in.... a flexible hose from the air cleaner to the rear of the door jam on the drivers side, again with a louver... so the engine could breathe air from in the door jamb instead of the dusty air that cam into the engine compartment through the vents in the engine lid. Most people think that imps get their engine/radiator cooling air from under the car up through the radiator, however, the fan on the water pump (like a turbine) is pushing air from the inside of the engine area down, forward under the car. The bottom of the car is concave, making a low pressure area under the car. This was fine by design, but unfortunately, when they went to get the IMP registered (as a type) the old guy with the stick with the ball on it casually said "The front parking lights are too low" ... and with no time to re-design where the lights could be raised to... the obvious answer was to fit longer front springs to make the park lights 'high enough' to get the IMP registered. This gave the IMP that horrible 'knock kneed' high front stance which was then advertised in the brochure 'to IMProve handling (outright lie) as it made them handle terribly, look stupid, wear tyres, understeer but worst of all, it got rid of the benefit of the low pressure under the car which was the only thing keeping the engine cooling working.... so at a certain speed (about 40mph) the air pressure under the car would push against the fan pushing the air down thru the radiator... the air would be stationary in the fins of the radiator and it would overheat and the 'orange light of doom and gloom' would come on on the dash... it would boil because it was the speed best for driving around town... the head would warp, the mechanic would fix the head and tighten the steel head bolts into the alloy block (which requires 36ft/Lb... but their torque wrench was set at about 120 ft/Lb for iron blocks... this would pull the threads out of the alloy block and everyone agreed IMPs were useless. Most IMP owners never knew this, they believed the high front end was for IMProved handling... anyone who knew, simply lowered the front back to where it was designed and cooling was much better (but still iffy) Our imps had to have a percentage of locally produced parts which included the glass, munroe shocks, wheels & tyres, upholstery, headlights and some other parts to meet the criteria to not be fully IMPorted cars (import duty/tax reasons) Any cars/vans/utes have been imported privately from the UK, Europe, South Africa and of course the Land of the wrong white crowd... where we had everything thru Todd Motors. NZ had all the variants including Singer, Commer, Sunbeam and all of the mixtures available.... alot ended up here. I am not sure exactly what Eiffel Tower Motors in Victoria IMPorted to make the convertible 'Sonic' imps.... they had their own deal with the Rootes Group, however, I believe they were the same CKD mark 1 kits https://www.imps4ever.info/library/sonic/sonic.html Yes, IMPs have had all manner of motors fitted... from Subaru, Rotary, Suzuki (car) BMW inline 4 bike motor and of course sports bike engines.... Nothing like a series 4 Subaru STI motor to get an imp moving (rapidly) My typing finger is getting sore now... I might have to stop. You can put your eyes back in now. lol