Engine Punk

Torum on the 2021 Launceston Trial I first came across Torum outside Georgie Mellor’s engine tuning establishment in Plymouth. I’d brought my Siva Llama there in an attempt to rectify a lack of puff above 60 mph and outside was what you might call a “cobby” trials car. This would have been around 1999, by which time Joe Caudle and Andy Prosser were successfully campaigning Torum in classic long-distance trials. Torum began in 1985 as a Midge, a component car built to plans offered by John Cowperthwaite of JC Sports Cars. For about £30, an enthusiast received templates and plans to turn a tatty Triumph Herald or Spitfire into a vintage-styled sports car. After getting so far with the project, family commitments and a career in teaching intervened for 10 years before Joe could resume construction. I asked Joe how he got into motorsport.   “I first remember becoming interested in motorsport and cars at an early age when my Uncle Harry used to visit. He went to the Grand Prix r...

If Cooper had made Coventry-Climax front engined cars, this is how they might have looked I'd heard of this car several years ago from a brief article in the Imp Club magazine and especially liked the ally panels created on an English wheel and the use of a front mounted Imp engine . This is a Hillman Imp special par excellence . The RBN actually uses the Chrysler Sunbeam block, a 928cc version of the Imp block used in entry level versions of these rear-wheel drive hatchbacks.The RBN also uses the Avenger derived gearbox from the same source. I think that feature line that runs all the way round the car works especially well However, the chassis is Triumph Spitfire, shortened by a foot and clothed in aluminium bodywork hand wheeled by its constructor, Philip Robinson, who took 18 months to build it. The 928cc Chrysler Sunbeam engine responds just as well to tuning as the Imp engine. The bulge in the bonnet was for an earlier single carb The engine is highly modi...