MYTH BUSTER
Debunking the most common old wives’ tales
1 IT USED A FIRE PUMP ENGINE
Yes, the motor is based on a Coventry Climax 1020cc FWMA intended for that purpose. But it was then modified for cars, and racing in particular. The furtheraltered 741cc FWMA version was chosen by Rootes and then tweaked again. The 875cc Imp unit eventually maxed out at 998cc and is very different to the original water-squirter.
2 IT WAS INHERENTLY UNRELIABLE
The Imp was quite an advanced car for its time, with innovations such as its all-aluminium engine, pneumatic throttle linkage and automatic choke. Sadly, these did prove unreliable on the early cars and so, for the MkII (1965) many improvements were made to make the cars much more trustworthy. Unfortunately, the damage to the model’s reputation had been done and, especially with the Mini as a rival to contend with, sales never really recovered.
3 THE SUNBEAM MODEL WAS NAMED AFTER A SHOE
Sorry, fans of ladies’ high-heeled shoes – the pretty Sunbeam Stiletto coupé didn’t take its name from the elegant, if potentially lethal footwear. A stiletto is a small knife, a sort of reduced rapier. And that, of course, was a larger Sunbeam model. Can you see what they did there?
4 IT FINISHED OFF ROOTES
Rootes was in a mess long before its takeover by Chrysler in 1967. A slump in UK car sales in 1960-1961, a disastrous 13-week strike in ’61, and the launch of the Super Minx and Vogue the same year without getting rid of any older models, had already set Rootes on the path to its demise.