Engine Punk

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...

The architect of this fine engine house is long forgotten, like so many others, but many people comment on its design, often remarking that it looks like a town hall. Finding this place was a very pleasant surprise. Not being in a Hillman Imp for the National Rally this year, I couldn't really join in the trip into the Crich Tramway Museum so poked around Matlock Bath in my own so I toured around for a bit and noticed a sign for High Peak Junction, which I already knew was where the Cromford & High Peak Railway met the Cromford Canal. There's a small museum and a very interesting shop at High Peak Junction The sewage works nearby niffed a bit but the footpath was well signposted and led me to the canal and the foot of the quaintly named Sheep Pasture railway incline. However, there was a vaguely smokey quality to the air and, picking up an air scent, I ran along the towpath, passed the trans-shipment shed and saw a chimney through the trees on the opposite ban...

Stuart runs up the SKR outfit, which is not a 4x2 or a 4x4 but a 4x3. This extraordinary device turned up at the Imp Club National Rally on the Sunday afternoon and completely distracted me form the awards ceremony. I saw this gaggle of people onbviosuly looking at something pretty low and then heard an engine start up. That roll bar thing at the front is actually the frame that goes under the car/sidecar/trike to lift the wheels and allow it to be started Imagine my surprise when I saw what they looking at. It pretty much defies description but here goes. This is how you start it It's a racing sidecar outfit with a Hillman Imp engine and transmission. Although it has four wheels the rear two are considered to be close enough to be considered as one. And of those four wheels, three are driven. From the side, you can see the upright Imp engine. Note the SU carb and intake arrangements. Underneath the zorst cowling is also an Imp gearbox. It was built by ...

The pump engine house at Magpie Mine Just before attending the Imp Club National, I camped for a few days at Monyash in the High Peak. This was a good choice because within a few miles was the site of an abandoned mine. I'd already researched the area and discovered that there was a Cornish engine house at Magpie Mine, reputedly the best preserved lead mine in the country. I'd never been to the Peak District before and was very pleasantly surprised by what I found. It's quite beautiful and not at all crowded. It made a pleasant change to find a part of the British Isles that I did not know at all. When I approached Magpie Mine, though, I felt back at home. You can see the engine house for some way off and it had all the hallmarks of a Cornish engine house. It was built by Captain John Taylor who operated mines all over the UK, as well as in Mexico, and he brought a team of about twenty Cornish men to Sheldon to There were other mine engines of this type in the...

A Tasker Little Giant showman's tractor basks in the sunshine with a Robey convertible in the background - that's convertible as in convertible from a tractor to a roller. At last the sun really shone and, after weeks of rumours that the the Boconnoc Steam Fair would be cancelled like so many others due to boggy conditions, we all got horrendously sunburnt. Not that anybody really minded. Just look at everyone glowing in the sunshine. A VX4/90 and a Dolomite Sprint sink their differences and wallow in bonhomie  It struck me that although there were many, many cars at the show, there weren't that many bikes. If the bikes lacked in numbers, the quality was high. This proddy racer Commando was my favourite bike. But there were loads of tractors and the tractor pulling was good to watch. Rear wheels spinning, tyre cleats getting smaller with ever run and the front wheels skipping across the ground with big engines on open pipes - luvverly! I particularly e...

As bought This is the Vintage Thing that burst its top hose on the way to Le Mans. It's my Monster Mazda that was renamed Le Monster Mazda in the expectation that it would get us there but it didn't. However, I've got into the habit of calling it that and the name has stuck. So have the L and the E that I've added to the Monster Energy drink logos down its flanks. The home made bodykit made it look very heavy, especially from the rear My involvement with Le Monster Mazda began with a long standing appreciation of the Mazda 323F that was made from 1995 to 1998 (check). These always struck me as a concept car that had somehow made it into production - later 323s are appallingly bland by comparison - and when I spoke to people who owned them they said they loved them. The engines were especially sweet and the best one of the lot from my piston-headed, Engine Punk standpoint was the V6. So I did what any normal person would do. I put a search on Ebay for one an...

A Le Mans start at Le Mans. Rolling starts are much safer but don't create the same spectacle. After a false start, I still went to this year's Le Mans Classic, the false start courtesy of a burst top radiator hose on a forthcoming Vintage Thing wot I own ( watch this space ). It happened on the way to the ferry in Plymouth and fortunately not on the other side of the channel so if it was going to happen that's the way it should've happened. A quick regrouping and assessment of the amount of stuff we proposed taking and the available vehicles at our disposal resulted in us choosing my neighbour's Land Rover Defender as fallback transport. Andrew the tractor man said it handled better loaded down with all our gear and was surprisingly economical on such a long run. Now is not the time to forget your Jag is left hand drive. Or to put your leg through the steering wheel. Fortunately, Alex Buncombe, in the C Type and Peter Mulder in the Gullwing Merc don'...