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Showing posts from February 3, 2010

Vintage Thing No.39.1 - the Gillie

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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...