Bob has a passion for Hillman Imps which can be traced back to learning to drive one. Since then he has owned many more and become something of an expert on the model.

Living out in the country not far from Bristol he has need of an all purpose run around and one day Bob had the good fortune to be in his autocross racer friend Philip’s garage when Philip was poking holes with a screw driver through an Imp he had just acquired.

Philip agreed to give the Imp to Bob for nothing and before Philip could change his mind Bob got the car home and chopped the roof off with an angle grinder and then strategically added some steel to maintain structural rigidity.

He then matched up the C pillars and tailgate with the remaining roof behind the door frame which allowed the seats, rescued from a Peugeot 205 GTi, to be moved all the way back on their runners.

Bob has made a few mechanical improvements to the car including removing the original transverse mounted radiator and installing one from a Nissan Micra longitudinally which improves cooling of the alloy engine.

With five years on and off work completed and expenses that “didn’t run in to thousands” Bob took his Imp Pick Up to an Imp Club meeting for it’s first run and came home with second place prize in the modified class.

Best of all his wife finds the pick up far more comfortable than his other car, a Sunbeam Imp but with out the Peugeot seats. Which all goes to show as Joe Diffie observed there is something women like about a pick up man.

Thanks for joining me on this “Pick Up Man” edition of “Getting a li’l psycho on tyres”. I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to came back now !