When my Imp was on Heartbeat

Loved reading Nick Larkin’s article on the Heartbeat cars ( CCW, 16 September). I bought an Imp in reasonable condition online back in 2012 from a person in Norwich after reading a Practical Classics article by Fuzz Townsend on restoring and modifying them.

I initially bought it to modify for hillclimb and sprint competition use and now enjoy driving it on tours and displaying at shows. About a month after my purchase a friend said that he thought he had seen my car in the background of an episode of Heartbeat. I then watched that particular episode and to my amazement, it was my car!

I then recorded all the episodes, watched them, and found my car was used in nine different episodes. Although never used as a feature car it was clearly visible in the background of many scenes. Being slightly modified,I reckon my Imp could outrun all the Heartbeat

Panda cars!

Later I discovered that it had also been used for a background shot in an episode of The Royal, a Heartbeat spin-off, where an Imp gets stuck on a level crossing and is hit by a diesel train. Imp Club member, Roger Gill, tried to get them to use a Mini because they were more plentiful, but the TV company was adamant that it had to be an Imp. So he persuaded them to use a standard saloon instead of a Singer Coupé that they initially wanted to crash, as these were too rare to destroy just for a television scene.

He bought two scrap Imps and cloned them for use on the level crossing filming.

❚ Martin Parkes, Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham