Vintage Thing No.49 - the VW-Imp trials special

A number of times over the last couple of trialling seasons have seen me turning up to spectate at a section somewhere only to be accosted by an acquaintance with words to the effect of, "You should have been here earlier, Bob! There was hopped-up, mental Imp that..." And they would go on to describe how it became airborne on the first bump and didn't land until the pilot throttled back just beyond the section ends boards. Or that it had proceeded up the hill on the rear pair of wheels only with the headlamps pointing to the sky.

A quick scam through the programme would prove that there was indeed a big engined Imp in the trial.

However, this very special Imp proved surprisingly elusive. It wasn't until we were signing off at the end of the Land's End Trial this year that I saw this legendary vehicle to a first-time. The crew were also signing of so didn't have much time to talk to them but the driver, Tristan White, gave me the keys to the car and said, "Take as many pictures as you like, do whatever you feel with it."

Through the good auspices of the Camel Vale Car Club, I managed to track Tris down again and last week he came along to our regular gathering of Hillman Imp enthusiasts in Bodmin, which, funnily enough, is Tris’ home town.

The car in question is probably the ultimate development of the VW-Imp trials special. There have been quite a few of these constructed over the years and they seek to combine the Imps tidy dimensions with the legendary mud plugging ability of Ferdinand Porsche’s finest. In their most basic form, they are simply Volkswagen drivetrains shoehorned into the wide but low engine bay of the Hillman Imp, which originally was designed to take a boxer engine.

Back in the early 90s, I once marshalled on a section with Mike Furse, the long-standing membership secretary of the Motor Cycling Club, which is responsible for organising all the long-distance classic trials. He told me that he had a VW-Imp but this was a far more sophisticated machine in that it had complete VW running gear from front to back and was more of a Hillman Imp shell mounted on a VW floorpan. If my memory serves me right, this machine was still extant at the time although Mike said it was very rusty. I'd be particularly intrigued to know if this VW-Imp still survives.

Slightly before this date, during the my first Land's End Trial as a competitor, (or was it the first event in the llama?) I noticed a red Hillman Imp with very large wheels in the car park at a control point. Listed in the programme as a 2-litre, it looked like the proverbial mountain goat on steroids. At one point we watched it storm up Cutliffe Lane. It had been built by Martin Harry and was typically driven by his wife Julia. Somebody later told me that it had the back half of a Beetle under its wings but used Ford Pinto power. It was certainly very successful but then disappeared for awhile and in fact I haven't seen it since.

Tristan White's car continues this tradition but instead of Pinto power unit it uses one from a VW Golf. It was built by Terry Richards of Ponsanooth (my voice activation software interprets Ponsanooth as porn sunroof) but the project was funded by Rob Williams who worked for the local Kessells and Riders car dealerships. Tris bought it from Trevor Bailey in Keinton Mandeville five years ago this September and at that stage it had an 1800 Mk1 Golf GTi engine.

This engine later went up in smoke -- quite literally. It began to leak oil prodigiously during a trial until the exhaust got so hot that the escaped oil reached its flashpoint and burst into flames. This couldn't have happened at a worse spot because Tris had just climbed a very slippery grass section and there were very few people and no other cars nearby.

He leapt out and began to unscrew the folding spare wheel carrier over the engine compartment but, by now, the flames had really taken hold and if it hadn't been for the layers of clothing that he wore then he wouldn't go quite badly burnt. Luckily, another trials driver with a fire extinguisher in his car saw what was going on and managed to clear the grassy section in a desperate rescue bid. The fire extinguisher was just big enough to put out the flames and now Tris never goes anywhere without two.

Tris then to have the opportunity to fit a Mk3 8 valve Golf 2-line engine and this now runs on twin 40s holding onto a special inlet manifold with very long induction tracts, the longest they could fit into the available space in fact. The idea of this is to maximise the available torque.

The exhaust system is still quite involved. The curves down from the engine from under the inlet manifold and then runs back to the rear of the sump where it crosses the back of the car before running boards again and then doubling back into a rearwards facing silencer and exits through a cutaway engine cover. This is the original engine power that just about survived the earlier fire and is now more air vent than steel. Engine cooling it's taken care of by a front mounted radiator but it's still important to get hot air out of the engine compartment.

Tris reckons this engine puts out a modest 115 bhp but in a car the size of the Hillman Imp this represents a very favourable power to weight ratio. Torque is anybody's guess that is conservatively rated at "adequate."

The VW hubs have been modified to accept Ford Sierra wheels while at the front the original Hillman Imp hubs carry Skoda Estelle wheels. Again, the hubs have been adapted rather than the wheels.

I assumed that Tris had fitted front disc brakes but he is actually still running on drums. He admitted that the brakes could be better and at some stage he may well improve them but he said that his VW-Imp was not a car to drive quickly on the road. It was built for tralling and it didn't sound like he enjoyed driving it fast on tarmac. "The centre of gravity is so high to get the necessary ground clearance that it really doesn't handle well. But when it's in the mud, it just keeps on finding grip."

The excellent ground clearance gives Tris' car it's purposeful stance, which, to my mind, suggests an all-terrain Hot Rod. It's just as well then that its performance exceeds its looks.

Tris is a very an accomplished trials driver and is currently doing very well in the Wheelspin Trophy. Having been in the lead for part of the year, he is typically lying either second or third. He knows his car quite well now and there is hardly a weekend during the winter when he is not using it competitively. He also has a Troll, a bespoke trials special that resembles a Lotus 7 from a distance, but he finds driving the VW-Imp less tiring. As soon as he's finished an event, he steam cleans his Imp and sprays it with duck oil, which explains how he has kept it in such good condition over the years, despite such a packed competition history. Long may it continue.

Vintage Thing No.22.4 - yet another other Siva Llama

I've just been talking to the owner of yet another Siva Llama. Chris Griffin has owned his car from new. It's his only car and the mileage is just coming up to 27,000 miles. He works on a farm and only has to travel about half a mile to work, which he usually cycles. He's regularly covered the chassis in old engine oil and the only things that have rusted so far are the steel brake pipes outboard of the flexible hoses at the rear. Apart from two or three water pump seals and the occasional throttle cable, Chris's car is just as it left the Aylesbury factory.

I asked him what attracted him to the Llama in the first place and he said that he was looking for something reliable, fun, adaptable, rustproof and that looked a bit different. He first came across the Siva Llama when it was advertised in one of the farming magazines, probably Farmer's Weekly. He visited the Siva factory in Aylesbury with his father in the summer of 1974 and saw a number of cars under construction, including some of the more exotic VW-based Sivas. These would probably have been Siva Salukis. He reckons as many as 8 people worked there at the time.

Chris and his dad were shown all round the factory and Chris's father expressed concern about the front mounted fuel tank in an accident. "Was there a fire risk with the glass fibre bodywork?" he wondered. Their guide said that there was no fire risk and proceeded to demonstrate this by playing an oxyacetylene welding torch on a scrap body moulding. Despite the full force of the flame, all the glass fibre did was blister and it certainly didn't burst into flame.

Reassured on this point, they also asked about the battery position. This is still a constant source of amusement to all Siva owners because to get the battery out you have to jack the car up and take off the near side rear wheel, which then allows you to take off a further panel within the rear wheel arch before you can get at the battery. The access panel on the inside of the body allows you to reach its terminals but to actually remove it you have to "get down and get under". The response from their guide was that in export markets, such as Spain or Portugal, local drivers liked to fiddle with their batteries and this design had been adopted deliberately to stop them from doing this.

Although they didn't really believe this, Chris still liked the Siva Llama. The lack of foot space around the pedals was the only other awkward thing about the car but it didn't stop him ordering one. There were two options - either build the car yourself or take delivery through an agent of a finished car and Chris chose the latter route for simplicity's sake.

This was of particular interest to me because all the information on Llamas that I had seen suggested that they had only ever been available as a kit. When I entered mine in the classic trials run by the Motor Cycling Club, I was running in Class 7 with the big engined Beetles. I had hoped to be included in Class 4, which was for rear-engined cars up to 1300cc. When I queried this, the scrutineers said that they had made a concession to me by including me in Class 7, for, if the rules were applied as intended, my Llama would have been included with the red spot Class 8 specials, which included rear-engined kit cars like beach buggies.

Although it is unlikely that I will ever use my Llama again in classic trials, Chris said he would get something in writing to me about his car being fully built by the factory. He might even be able to get something from the agent that supplied his car from new. This was Station Garage, Rudgwick, West Sussex, run by Tony Thorpe, and Chris still gets his car MOTed by the same firm although the garage has long since moved out of Rudgwick. Because he was buying the car fully assembled, he had to use an agent as an intermediary but this was no problem, as the local village garage could easily oblige. This was quite a common practice in rural areas. I can remember the faded sign writing on garage walls in my father's home village of Plaistow in West Sussex saying that any make of car could be supplied new.

There was a small delay to delivery and Chris finally took delivery in November 1974. True to his word, Chris sent me a copy of the original invoice. Including 12 months car tax at ₤25 (₤25!), ₤3 for numberplates and ₤96 for Car Tax and ₤97 for VAT, Chris’ car cost him ₤1,339.

Now, in one of those spooky coincidences that feature in real life, on the way back from looking at my Llama when I bought it, I stopped off in Okehampton and bought a copy of World Cars for 1976 that listed the Llama for sale. Its price ex-works was then listed as ₤1,246. For Chris, this was ₤1,176 before a 5% discount. In 1976, the cost of a Hillman Imp was ₤1,587. An 850 Mini was ₤1,299 and a Skoda 110 saloon was ₤1,100.

This sort of cost made me suspect that Llamas were available fully built but, until now, I couldn't prove anything.

12 months car tax at ₤25, though!

Chris used his car mostly on the farm but in his younger days went much further afield, such as the Midlands, Wales and the New Forest. Some years, he barely did 300 miles and to provide an unbroken record of his mileage through old MOT certificates, he's returned to go the same garage that acted as agent when he bought the car. It only ever failed once in the rear brake pipes developed rust.

Back in the summer, Chris's car was used as wedding transport for his nephew's wedding. His Llama is in remarkably original condition and has lived up to his expectations for all the years since he bought it. Ground clearance can prove limited in some circumstances and, in sticky situations, the Llama is better going forward than backwards. The front end is so light that Chris and his brother used to be able to lift it up and turn the car around through 180° if ever they got bogged down. He found the rear wheels rub on the rear inner wheel arches on full bump and fitted some wheel spacers to get around this. These gave the added benefit of widening the rear track, which just like an Imp is slightly narrower than the front, with the result that it handles even better in boggy conditions.

I was intrigued by the colour because most surviving Llamas seem to be in this bright yellow. Chris said that it has lost some of its brilliance over the years but it still looks good to me. This is the original gel-coat finish. Mine has been re-sprayed and in worn areas a sand-coloured gel-coat is visible.

I asked him what its best feature was, and he said reliability. I think this is a testament to him looking after his car so well. And it's worst feature? "It doesn't like running when cold. Juggling the choke is a real art. Too much and it runs hesitantly but too little and it just dies."

I think an unbroken record of ownership over 34 years indicates a good deal of customer satisfaction for Chris from the Siva motor company.

On the day of the wedding it poured. The photo call with the happy couple and the Llama was completed the following day but despite the weather the bride arrived on time, tucked away under the Llama's hardtops. Chris removed the zip up door on one side so well-wishers could see her but it wasn't long before the bridal possession attracted the attention of the local police. A squad car pulled up alongside with an "'Ello, 'ello, 'ello? What's going on 'ere then?" expression on the crew's features but when they saw the wedding dress they just grinned and wished everyone well.

This car takes a total of known survivors up to 6, two of which are -- amazingly -- still with their original owners. And there may be even more yet to come to light through the power of the Internet!

2009 Exeter Trial

The weather was good and the going was dry for the 2009 Exeter Trial over Friday night and Saturday. Here's Barry and Fiona Smith in their 939cc MG PB "getting it on up" as Kool and The Gang might have said had they discovered the wonderful world of classic trials and not made a successful career out of disco, in which it is frequently necessary to -- and I quote -- "get it on down, get it on down, get it on down."

Or maybe they're taking Curtis Mayfield's advice to "Move on Up."

(My personal favourite trialling track is In a Rut by (appropriately enough) The Ruts. Listen to the words if you can. The middle bit always reminds me of looking for Warleggan in the mists of Bodmin Moor.

I spectated at Simm's this year, which is generally reckoned to be one of most spectacular trails hills anywhere. Blue Hills on the Land's End Trial must come close but since they put the wriggle in at the top, I think it has to play second fiddle to Simm's in terms of foot-to-the-floor all out blasts. This year, the crowds were the biggest I've ever seen on this section. Lots of bikes and cars got up this year so there wasn't quite so much applause as usual, since a "clean" run without stopping, or putting the foot down for the motorcyclists, was nothing out of the ordinary.

It was also the opportunity to meet up with some old friends. Start line official for the Class O section was none other than Jim Travers, with whom I had marshalled many years before. It must have been back in the late 80s and, if my memory serves me correctly, that year the Land's End Trial was filmed for a pre-Jeremy Clarkson Top Gear programme. Jim remembered this - we thought it was Tony Mason who featured - and said that the section that we were on had been Hobb's Choice. Bearing in mind my subsequent scribblings about Mick, Hob, The Horsepower Whisperer, perhaps this early experience of motorsport created a significant subconscious impression on my already fevered imagination. Hobb's Choice took a bit of finding. It was an earlky hill on the Land's End Trial and we had to set the section up in the dark. But Jim had got there first with a generator-driven lighting set to create a little illuminated oasis in the middle of countryside that was as my trialling mate Col wouldsay, "As black as a cow's guts."

Here Jim is marking the card of Simon and Adam Browner from Tavistock. I bumped into these two last year at Fingle Bridge and had a brief chat with them. Their Sunbeam Imp Sport now sports a 998cc engine. They were competing again in Class O, which features slightly gentler sections than the full on classic trial. My chat with them this year was even briefer than last time but they'd had a good event and cleaned all the hills so far. I had just time to wish them luck and then Jim waved them on. I expect I'll hear more detail of their exploits later.

Sorry I didn't get a better picture of you, Jim, but you just moved too fast for me.

Back on the main section of Simm's, there was plenty of grip and lots of successful climbs. The most favoured technique was a crowd-pleasing balls out, brain off blast up the hill. Only one or two really had to work to get up and their success was rewarded by a round of applause from the still appreciative crowd, who particularly liked it if the car concerned was really old. The motorcycle sidecar outfits also got great cheers as they roared their way to the summit.

I was really pleased to see the Imps do well. Bill Rosten and Ian Moss both took their cars up the hill in fine style and I was particularly intrigued by entry number 149, crewed by Tris White and Michael Richards. According to the programme, this car had an engine of 2000cc. I would very much like to know more about this device, which shouldn't be difficult, seeing as it is based in Bodmin, which is where we have our monthly Cornish Imp Club meetings.

The highest speeds that were possible in such conditions caused some mechanical damage. A few storming climbs were brought to an abrupt fall and a horrible clattering and then there was the added spectacle of clearing the section so someone else could have a go.

One Marlin broke its prop, apparently at the axle end, about two thirds of the way up the hill. This meant that they could not go backwards down the hill so the tractor that was already in action on the Class O section was summoned. It slithered down gently and, after being attached to the Marlin with a cable, took up the slack only to discover that it could get up the hill again. We were incredulous. We'd just seen ordinary cars romp up the hill and now here was a four-wheel-drive tractor spinning its wheels in perplexity.

Everyone started making helpful suggestions then, some more practical than others and some not particularly helpful, either, to be perfectly honest. At times like this it's best to remember that every marshall is a volunteer doing it for love. Without them, there would be no sport like this, so we gathered round as helpfully as we could to move the car and spread the love.

Then the bank we were standing on gave way.

There was a chorus of "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" in an appeal to gravity's better nature but it wasn't having any of it and the next thing I knew there was a pair of inverted Wellington boots in front of me as the man underneath them did a kind of headstand in the ruts made by the tractor's front wheels. It was just as well the tractor was stuck. He was fine, though, just a little muddy in some unexpected places and with another story to tell when he got home. As he said to his grandson who was found underneath him, "It's not everyday you get steamrollered by grandpa, is it?" Although the youngster's bottom lip was going a bit, at this he burst into laughter.

So did the rest of us. It was that sort of day.

In the end, the resourceful marshalls and crew hooked up the dangling prop shaft by running a strap underneath the car and over the cockpit. This then allowed a graceful descent without any pole vaulting for the Marlin and a pensive slither for the tractor at a safe distance behind.

A horsey lady next to me said that the tractor driver should've tried the hill again immediately to restore the tractor's confidence but, judging by the successful ascents by the cars, he wouldn't have been able to go fast enough to get up. It seemed to be a question of momentum and bouncing.

The Primrose Special of Neil Bray and Julie Fleet made a spectacular leap just after I took this photograph but came crashing down afterwards. There was a horrendous bang and their rapid progress up the hill came to a sudden halt. A great sigh of sympathy went up from the crowd for Neil has been competing in this car for years and I well remember his familiar style from another spectacular climb that he made on the 1984 Land's End Trial. Somewhere, I've got a photograph of that, too, with him waving his hook out of the window in typical fashion. I think this picture gives an idea of the speed at which he was travelling. Bearing in mind that the light was good and that he has just come around a sharp right-hand blind corner and you can understand what a gutsy driver he is. I think it's a good looking car, too.

Eric and Di Wall in this 1600 Mk1 Dellow had a good blast, too. I remember seeing this car at Crackington many years ago, obviously freshly restored and looking immaculate. It still looks good and has been actively campaigned regularly. I think its overall condition and competition record are a real credit to its crew.

One of my favourite shots from today is this picture of Simon Rogers holding onto his hat in his Austin 7. Or maybe he's just remembered that he's left the gas on and is thumping his forehead. He certainly had the gas on at Simm's....