The Roaring Season

Cheers, thanks Jeff

Awesome! Thanks for sharing. Who's was the Imp in the first photo?

I loved watching this! What a great bit of history and nostalgia.

I've recently got back from a holiday in the UK and while there i caught up with my old friend and former saloon racer, John Homewood who used to race Imps in the 1000cc special saloon championships over there in the 1970's with a huge amount of success over the years, regularly beating many bigger ...

What a great thread. I absolutely love all these amazing old shots. The "whites of their eyes" ones are incredible!!

I believe the Leckie Imp was written off after an end over end roll due to a rear hub breakage. The Vuyk Stiletto was apparently built using a saloon body which then had the coupe roof grafted on. The coupe doors are also different to the saloon doors due to the lower roofline.

Russ, thanks for posting these. I had no idea about Bill Leckie, I'm shocked by that. Very sad to hear about losing both of these guys. RIP. I'm also sad to hear that. I met Bill at Ruapuna in 1975-ish which is when I took this shot of him with the amazing Imp-Ford. A very nice guy as I recall ...

Thought you might appreciate this, it's a 2 cylinder BDA (the remains of a blown-up 4 cylinder BDA) powered Fiat 500.

What happened to George Bevans Imps? Do any still survive? In theory the triple championship winning car survives somewhere, but no-one, including the Bevan family know where it might be, which is why the Bevan family built a "continuation" replica to commemorate the original hat-trick winning Imp ...

Beautiful photos. Got any more? I sure do, here are a few: Plastic pig with it's transporter Davrian Imp 1 jpeg.jpg In this shot John is surveying some damage to the side of the Imp. This was inflicted by the Mini obscured behind the Imp. This mini was Peter Baldwins 1300 BDA powered version which ...

Rod Grimwood wrote:There you are Habu, before it was painted the ugly red & orange.

Very nice Rod. I've always loved the look of the Mk1 Escorts with factory arches.
Cheers, Simon.

Rod Grimwood wrote:There you are Habu, before it was painted the ugly red & orange.

Very nice Rod. I've always loved the look of the Mk1 Escort with factory arches.
Cheers, Simon.

Some info for you following Imp wagons posting 1 George Bevans Imps wont the BTCC 3 years on the trot with Bill McGovern 70 71 72 ( i think without checking!) 2 George built my fathers Imp engines 75-82 and many other local racer engines but he also had some German and Scandanavian customers too 3 ...

Wow! Those are wild! I love British Super Saloons, some of the wildest, most creative saloon cars raced in that series. Good to see many are now being restored and used again. Re the Mini Countryman, why did they build a Countryman over a normal Mini? Also, why a Mini at all, why not an Imp? That's ...

Now here are a couple of photo's from the UK in the 1970's of an aluminium bodied, space-framed mini countryman built and raced by a guy called Ginger Marshall. It was actually powered by an Imp engine mated to a Mini 'box - ingenious! It was quicker than all the other BMC powered Minis and was a ...

Fantastic! Thanks for all the links. It certainly brings back a lot of very happy memories. I can almost smell the Avgas.......

I did eventually import a Ginetta G15 into NZ in 2000. Most Ginettas were Ford powered but the G15 is Imp powered and has good performance due to it's low weight of 560 Kg. Mine is a 1973. I have competed at Hawkswood and Gebbies pass hillclimbs plus track days and the odd grasskhana, but nothing ...

Hey, great photo! Boy he really knew how to make one of those Imps run hard. And whats more, his cars were absolutely gorgeous! So after you'd raced your car for two seasons, what happened to it then? I sold it to a friend of mine, Dave Rycroft, who did very little with it and then on sold it to ...

Wow, George Bevan components! His cars were hugely successful in the BTCC. How many years did you race the car for? Got any more photos? Hi Steve, I ran it for 2 seasons in the 0-2 litre class which was a bit of a mis-match but it still managed to turn a few heads. I have only a few photo's tucked ...

Carlo wrote:Hmmm.. I am pretty sure that saw that Husky Imp cruising our patch a short while ago. I do recognise the photo background

Lake Pukaki, Mt. Cook in the background, 2004 from memory.