Vintage Thing No.139 - Raven 4WD

You may well stare in wonder Pete - you're looking at the interesting side

Pete Low and I spotted this little beauty in the paddock at Wiscombe Park hillclimb in 2014. There was no-one to ask when I spotted it and I've been trying to find out more about since then but to no avail.

Regular readers of Engine Punk may remember the Imp-powered Vixen single seater that sent me into raptures some time ago so it was inevitable that I should be drawn to the site of an upside down Imp gearbox again.

It's just a Hillman Imp gearbox, there's nothing to see here, move along now

The vehicle in question was clearly labelled a Raven but despite being pretty well up on Imp lore this didn't ring any bells with me. The inverted Imp gearbox enables the mid-engined layout and is often used with Imp engines as in the Vixen. But the Raven had a 1600 Ford crossflow lump in it - so it must be quite a well-built box, then, with an engine almost twice the size of yer ordinary Imp.

There's enough power here to wilt an ordinary Imp box.

It was as I was admiring this powerplant that I noticed 4WD written on the airbox.

And then I spotted an unfamiliar extra bit of machined alloy on the end of the box.

Actually there might be something to see here

I don't know if it was me or Pete who first noticed the driveshaft running forward from the end of the Imp box. Closer scrutiny revealed driveshafts tucked cunningly between the front suspension components.

At the bottom is a specially made transfer case and you can see the universal joint and propshaft running on the nearside of the inverted Imp gearbox. The other shaft with the brazing is for the gear linkage.

So the Raven has a four-wheel drive powertrain based on an Imp gearbox. It took a few moments to sink in and raises all sorts of questions.

The front driveshaft was connected to what suspiciously looked like an Imp rubber coupling

What is also interesting is the use of standard Imp rubber driveshaft couplings. Lotus spec competition couplings are recommended by most Impers but the racing fraternity seem to prefer the shock absorbing qualities of the standard ones. The competition variety have an extra transverse metal plate between the bolt holes.

The whole car is fascinating and I'm hoping it turns up again at Wiscombe again later this year and that the team have a few hours to answer all our questions.