Vintage Thing no.57.1 - Little Jimmy
English by looks but rear-engined in nature (Photo : Saco) When I wrote about Little Jim in my original post , there was a conspicuous gap in the narrative. Some details about the pre-war Little Jim were known to me but the next prototype for a very small car for the Rootes group was even more mysterious. All we had to go on was a mention in the Henshaw's book about the Hillman Imp, Apex - The inside story of the Hillman Imp. This, of course, was the eventual flowering of the small car concept developed by Rootes. In the Henshaw's book, Little Jimmy i s described as rear-engined and powered by a two-cylinder version of a Volkswagen air-cooled motor. These pictures of Little Jimmy popped up on the Auto Puzzles website in 2014 and eventually appeared via a link on the Imp Club Facebook page. What's that coming over the hill? (Photo : Grobmotorix archive) It took a while for the puzzle to pan out. By a process of elimination, the Rootes group were eventually identified and C...