Comparing today's Hillman Imp /Singer Chamois with yesterday's FIAT 850 it is hard to believe that the Imp/Chamoise was in production one year ahead of the 850. Unencumbered by an existing design, like the FIAT 850, the clean lines of the Imp / Chamois were the work of Tim Fry and occasional Ferrari F1 driver Mike Parkes who were given carte blanche at the start of the 'Apex' project.
Incredibly, well incredible to my 2010 eyes with 2020 hind sight the FIAT 850 out sold the Imp / Chamois nearly 5:1 despite the Imp / Chamois being in production for 5 more years from 1963 - 1976. This particular vehicle apparently first registered in Bristol in 1966 is the badge engineered high end Singer Chamois Mark II with a conventional throttle cable and manual choke replacing the pneumatic throttle linkage and automatic choke of the MK I in 1965.
The Imp / Chamois vehicles were built in a brand new factory in Linwood near Glasgow by a workforce more experienced in building mighty ships than assembling little cars. Knockdown kit versions were also assembled in Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, Venezuela, Uruguay, Costa Rica, South Africa and Australia.
Nearly 200,000 of these vehicles were built from 1963 - 1966 it then took another 10 years to build the same number again. The engine in the rear started life as an iron block FWMA Coventry Climax fire pump engine but was made, unusually for the time, entirely out of aluminium with a redesigned cylinder head in this application.
The 875 cc 53 cui engine delivered 39 hp enough to take the car to a respectable 80 mph. The car was perhaps hampered by having the engines cast in Glasgow and machined in Coventry before being shipped back to Glasgow for installation, a round trip of some 600 miles, but more than any thing the vehicle appears to have been a largely wasted marketing opportunity when compared against the similarly sized FIAT 850.
Thanks for joining me, I hope you have enjoyed today's Scottish edition wishing everyone with a heritage north of Hadrian's Wall a happy St Andrew's day.
Hope you'll join me again
tomorrow for another exciting instalment of 'Getting a lil' psycho on tyres', don't forget to come back now !
First up on the Monday was this cool metallic blue '51 Bonus Built Facelift Ford F1 Pickup.
The Singer B37 Sports, as featured on Tuesday, was a victim of a change in corporate strategy in 1937 which meant only 12 of these 6 cylinder cars got built.
I can pretend otherwise I froze my backside off marshaling at The Great Western Sprint, Wednesdays post tells what else happened.
If you'd asked me before last year I'd never have guessed that the Cadillac Catera was built in Germany quite simply because I had never heard of much less seen one before.
Ferrari Friday's blog featured this 250 GTO chassis #4153GT which was driven to victory in the 1964 Tour de France by Lucian Bianchi and Georges Berger.
Saturday's post featured this Peter Stevens styled '88 Lotus Esprit fitted with a post '93 Julian Thompson styled bumper/spoiler.
Jackie Stewart drove this Tyrrell #006, featured on Sunday to victory in the 1973 South African GP after crashing his own car and taking it over from his team mate Francois Cevert.
Thanks for joining me on this "GALPOT Weekly #13/13" edition of "Gettin' a li'l psycho on tyres" and thanks to all those who have spread the word by sharing by blogs on fb, Ryan ;-), and pressed the "Like" button when the blogs have appeared on the "Gettin' a li'l psycho on tyres" facebook page. I hope you will join me daily during the week ahead, don't forget to come back now !
The week started with a look at a 
Tuesday's post featured this 
I recently spoke to a friend from Spain who confessed he had no idea that the Spain once produced the Worlds Most Expensive Car in the form of the 
Americana Thursdays post featured this 
North Carolina heiress Mamie Spears Reynolds was just 20 years old when she bought this 
You could order a 
After a dip in the 1972 World Championship for Manufacturers rankings Gordon Murray's 
Monday's post featured this 
This 
Land locked Switzerland is better known for skiing in it's alpine mountains than manufacturing motor vehicles or the presence of any sharks but that did not stop Swiss Peter Monteverdi building four Dodge V8 powered super cars, one of which I looked at on Wednesday and giving them the 
On Americana Thursday I looked at the history of the 
The 
Satoru Nakajima parted with Team Lotus after three relatively unremarkable years with a forth place finish and fastest lap at the 1989 Australian Grand Prix driving a 
The 
The week started with a look at this 
Tuesday's post featured this li'l 
Thanks to Geoffrey Horton Wednesday's post featured some California sunshine as seen at the 
Annie Soisbault drove this 
Thanks to US$ 35 million of funding from General Motors Lotus developed the Lotus M100 Elan which was launched in 1989, the 
The final post of the week featured two 
