Impulse and the Jim Bennett Furi Cars story
Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2019 2:54 am
On the Dunedin thread is the continuing - as yet incomplete - story of Jim Bennett and his Furi cars.
The story is up to Furi 2, but Jim's main Racer has been Furi 9 [ Impulse ] for many years.
A single seater in a very 1930's/40's style, but like the Midget Jim raced in the 1960's.
an early photo - seen on the " Dunedin " thread - from Jim's archives ;
Photos are on this thread as it appears that " Chaindrive " is doing a tribute to Jim Bennett.
progress so far [ Tony " borrowed " your photos as I tend to do ! ]
a couple of details of the real car ;
Jim Bennett's own words
" A proper old type single seater like the midget raced in the 60's always held some appeal. Having always liked the appearance of the Jamieson twin-cam Austin 750 of 1934 I decided to create a look-a-like. I would have preferred to use a water cooled 4 cylinder motorcycle engine but the rules of the Classic movement meant using oldish components. A Hillman Imp seemed the only really suitable engine that I could think of that would have a similar specification and similar power to the original Austin which had a very special 750 alloy twin-cam putting out around 112 BHP at 7000rpm in 1934!
A boot load of bits were acquired from a long time friend. As design progressed on the Austin Look-a-like it was decided to utilise Imp parts for most of the car including the front hubs and kingpins, attached to a piece of tube for an axle, rear mounted gearbox inverted got the drive the right way and conveniently lowered the propeller shaft 100mm allowing a low seating position like the Austin. As the Imp steering rack was used this meant that the engine had to be leaned a bit to the left for the steering column to clear the distributor. A Shorrock supercharger from my squirrel like collection was fitted behind the motor, above the foot-well, and driven by a shaft running alongside the cylinder head. To tidy the appearance up another Imp cam cover was fitted over this tipped over at the opposite angle to the engine. This gave the appearance of a twin-cam a bit like the Austin and has provided as much fun listening to comments as driving the car does."
Like the last comment ;
Chaindrive - we await further photos of the progress and do not worry about " The Home for the Bewildered ".
More of the Furi 9 story will appears soon on the Dunedin thread - just have to post on Furi's 3 to 8.
The story is up to Furi 2, but Jim's main Racer has been Furi 9 [ Impulse ] for many years.
A single seater in a very 1930's/40's style, but like the Midget Jim raced in the 1960's.
an early photo - seen on the " Dunedin " thread - from Jim's archives ;
Photos are on this thread as it appears that " Chaindrive " is doing a tribute to Jim Bennett.
progress so far [ Tony " borrowed " your photos as I tend to do ! ]
a couple of details of the real car ;
Jim Bennett's own words
" A proper old type single seater like the midget raced in the 60's always held some appeal. Having always liked the appearance of the Jamieson twin-cam Austin 750 of 1934 I decided to create a look-a-like. I would have preferred to use a water cooled 4 cylinder motorcycle engine but the rules of the Classic movement meant using oldish components. A Hillman Imp seemed the only really suitable engine that I could think of that would have a similar specification and similar power to the original Austin which had a very special 750 alloy twin-cam putting out around 112 BHP at 7000rpm in 1934!
A boot load of bits were acquired from a long time friend. As design progressed on the Austin Look-a-like it was decided to utilise Imp parts for most of the car including the front hubs and kingpins, attached to a piece of tube for an axle, rear mounted gearbox inverted got the drive the right way and conveniently lowered the propeller shaft 100mm allowing a low seating position like the Austin. As the Imp steering rack was used this meant that the engine had to be leaned a bit to the left for the steering column to clear the distributor. A Shorrock supercharger from my squirrel like collection was fitted behind the motor, above the foot-well, and driven by a shaft running alongside the cylinder head. To tidy the appearance up another Imp cam cover was fitted over this tipped over at the opposite angle to the engine. This gave the appearance of a twin-cam a bit like the Austin and has provided as much fun listening to comments as driving the car does."
Like the last comment ;
Chaindrive - we await further photos of the progress and do not worry about " The Home for the Bewildered ".
More of the Furi 9 story will appears soon on the Dunedin thread - just have to post on Furi's 3 to 8.
