By Hooniverse
We’re all familiar with LeMons racing at this point. Many men in many different cars have won the title, but none have even pretended to do it in a 1966 Sunbeam Imp. $500 gets you a shell and a dream.
Pretend for a moment you don’t know anything about the flaming electrical wreckage of British motoring history. Such a flight of psychoactive fancy makes it considerably more palatable to consider this 1966 Sunbeam Imp as a shell to place all your LeMons racing dreams into. Just think about it for a moment; this tiny pimple of British throwaway automobilia is begging for a junkyard GM supercharged 3800 mounted midship, and we all know it.
Without malice or injustice, you could be Juan Fangio in your minds eye, blasting down the Mulsanne straight, burping out an obscene exhaust note at full chat in a POS that’s intent on killing you. You dive in and out of the rusted field gaining ground like a man possessed. Lesser adventurers would be embarrassed by their steed, but you’re a lesser man than they — an inner child released from the crushing world of TPS reports and action items. You are the distillation of motive joy.
And all it takes is buying this awful little British car. Do you see now how uncomplicated the world can be? — Detroit Craigslist
Go here if/when the listing dies
Jeff Glucker
"Without malice or injustice, you could be Juan Fangio in your minds eye, blasting down the Mulsanne straight, burping out an obscene exhaust note at full chat in a POS that’s intent on killing you."
We plan on doing that in a week and a half…
What're we thinking, Hoons? Is it a G imp, an L imp, or a W imp?
It'll be a P imp by the time it's done, though. The Eyesores definitely need this as a compliment to their Miata.
An S&M theme wouldn't be far off from what already goes on in the LeMons pits. It's just saying what everybody's already thinking.
First person to die in this thing once it's built will have a personal shrine built in their honour by me.
Will it have one of those water features? That always classes it up.
I'm feeling a 4.0 straight six for this
I like it, but I'd be tempted to go for complete reliability. Yank a 300 CI straight six out of an F-150, put it next to the driver and lash the output shaft right to the axle… you'd never roll the thing, of course, you'd also have to put truck springs in it.
I liked your original 3800 V6 idea… supercharged is good, but I'd go twin-turbo instead. Just because it has that tiny extra bit of insanity involved.
If you're going to turn yourself into a living legend by blasting through the pearly gates upside down, backwards and on fire, you might as well go all-out.
I like my original plan too. But I think I'd stick with the factory setup, I've seen too many hard working teams sidelined at LeMons races because they thought they were smarter than the factory.
Yeah, sorry, mental constipation. I was thinking of the Regal's 3.8L Turbo (T-type, Grand National, GNX, etc)… not the mythical "twin-turbo" that never actually existed.
Love that nearly bulletproof engine. What about something smaller like a Honda drivetrain?
From what I understand, Hondas have a nasty tendency to blow head gaskets at LeMons. You're right, though. The 4.0 is heavy and likely a bit much for this pea shooter.
I used to know a guy that raced an Imp in VARA. Sadly he passed away a few years back. I should have kept tabs on what became of the Imp. Maybe I'll get in touch with John the Greek and see if he knows.
Intensedebate profile
flickr account
Jalopnik profile
Couldn't find an email address, but he should be contactable through one of those.