Hartwell Imp - Restoration

[TISPKJ]

I know you guys love these kind of threads so here goes...

Back in August I rescued the original 1973 Grp 2 european championship car from Germany.
At the same time we also collected the original thought lost 1972 Bevan car.

I / We are just about to start the restoration, car has been dry stored for the past 40 years but is 100% rot free, needs lots of TLC but hopefully worth it in the end,

Bellow are a few pictures

[TISPKJ]

[TISPKJ]

[TISPKJ]

[e30m3Mark]

Such a great little car.

[TISPKJ]

And the Bevan car .....

[aeropilot]

Brilliant

[gforceg]

Looking forward to more. I learned to drive in an Imp.

That's some camber on the front of the first car.

[Ardennes92]

Excellent, never owned an imp personally although we did have one in the family

[alfie2244]

No reverse gear, overheated and the head warped....but I loved almost every minute of owning my Imp in the 70's.

[finlo]

Mine was known as the notwell imp.

[sim16v]

Brilliant find getting the pair of them back to the UK!

Good luck with the resto.

[TISPKJ]

gforceg said:

That's some camber on the front of the first car.

Yeah something not quite right there lol .... will find out in about an hour when we start the strip down today.

just found out safety devices have a 12 week wait ..... Grrrrrr

[aeropilot]

finlo said:

Mine was known as the notwell imp.

[e30m3Mark]

Thanks to this thread I spent 2 hours yesterday, looking for an Imp. I had one years ago and one of the first cars I ever went in was a pale blue, ex panda car.

Looking forward to watching progress.

[Lotobear]

Fabulous!! Please don't paint them.

[LotusOmega375D]

Fantastic cars! Well done.

Is this your Bevan Imp? This is a scan from the book "Apex. The Inside Story of the Hillman Imp". I was present when the book was launched at an Imp Club meet by its co-authors at Ryton on 13 August 1988. They kindly signed it for me.



There's also a photo of a Hartwell Imp, which looks like yours, but it says it was the 1967 BARC Saloon Car Championship winning car, so yours must be a newer one.

[lowdrag]

Our Imp lost so much oil we traded it in for another car. I stopped about two miles from the dealers and spent half an hour wiping the ruddy engine clean before negotiating the trade-in. MOY 963 D must surely have died many years ago now. But this looks to be a great thread. Bookmarked.

[TISPKJ]

e30m3Mark said:

Thanks to this thread I spent 2 hours yesterday, looking for an Imp. I had one years ago and one of the first cars I ever went in was a pale blue, ex panda car.

Looking forward to watching progress.

Only 2 hours :-)

[TISPKJ]

Lotobear said:

Fabulous!! Please don't paint them.

Im going to have to sadly to get it looking its best, however one of my ideas was to create the "Rat Look" or whatever they call it, so mint inside and in engine bay and under front bonnet but leave outside as is and then just polish and clear film the car warts and all.