Vintage Thing No.39.1 - the Gillie

Somebody sent me this scan of the Gillie in its original form some time ago and I've just stumbled across it in my archive files on my PC. I think it was from top chap Roger Swift who runs the archives for the Imp Club.

It shows the Gillie in its original form and to anyone who has ever restored an Imp some of those panels look strangely familiar, especially those rear wheel arches. That is because they usually live within the Imp bodyshell. The Gillie drew its looks(!) from the structural panels themselves and for pressings that were never designed to be seen the look, well (how can I put this) as if they were never meant to be seen.

But of course that was part of the charm of the Gillie.

It was a chirpy looking thing and this picture shows it standing tall on its skinny little tyres thanks to the hub reduction gears that lifted its vitals out of the way of rocks. It had a diff lock, too, and Tim Fry, who with Mike Parkes brought the Imp into being, said the Gillie would climb the side of a house.

The Gillie looks completely different nowadays (as featured here on Engine Punk earlier)and has actually spent far longer looking like this than it ever did looking like that.

According to the article, which I believe came from the October 1991 edition Classic & Sportscar magazine, two Gillies were made. One was used on Lord Rootes' estate where after a evaluation by the factory and rejection for production. The other prototype was sold to Malcolm Richardson of Wycliffe Garage in Wycliffe, Leicestershire. This was soon modified by his brother into a kind of racing beach buggy with that Holy Grail for Imp enthusiasts - a Hartwell engine (nowadays sadly absent).

Out went the reduction gearing and on went some dramatic new wheel arches. I get the feeling a number of attempts were made to alter the appearance of this car and in this rear view it looks quite groovy.

But not much of the souped up Gillie isn't included in this picture. The front wheel is literally just out of shot and there was hardly any front overhang. It was a very stumpy affair on its shortened Imp floorpan so the proportions would always look odd even after such extreme re-styling. Still, whhooargh! though, eh?

The rear wheels were made specially for the car by Weller Wheels and are still on the much modified car, which still survives. However, I understand that they are now very rusty and probably severely weakened.

The fate of the other Gillie remains a mystery. It would be great if it turned up after all this time but has probably gone the way of all things long ago.

The survivor spent most of its life since 1966 sitting in a garage and at the time of the 1991 article had only covered some 1300 miles. That must have ensured its survival but it has metamorphosed so radically in the meantime that it's not really a Gillie anymore and has become something else entirely.