Vintage Thing No.118 - RBN Special
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...