You should have tried driving one JohnF, Superb little car for the time. Far more refined that the Mini.

Hmm. I don't remember either being at all refined. They were probably fun to drive, just as other general purpose cars with the engine in the wrong place were fun to drive (my father had a Beetle) but the Mini was arguably the better car and certainly more successful, although not achieving the extraordinary success of that other basic car with the engine in the wrong place! (over 20million v. around 5million Minis). Hillman Imp? er, 440,000 over 13yrs according to Wiki.

Number of units produced is not an indication of how well something is engineered, it'd just an indication of what the general public bought.

The Imp was far better engineered than a mini.

The original mini with it's ' row your boat' gear lever, basic A series engine made of pig iron, sliding windows, and impact resistance of a damp brown paper bag had nothing to bragg about.

The Imp had many superior features than the mini, the sad thing is the car was rushed to production and it should have been fitted with a front rad.

I've done thousands of miles in Imp's and they were far more refined and comfortable that my friend's 1973 mini ever was (although his mini being a later model did have the luxury of having wind up windows).

The Imp has always struck me as a good design which could have been successful if it had better-quality components and better assembly. It was built in a new factory where most workers had never made cars before, and I don't suppose the unions helped much either.

My mum had a Triumph 1300 when they were new, and we got a 8-year-old one for SWMBO when we were fairly newly married. She still remembers it, 40 years on, as one of the most comfortable cars we've ever had. Of the cars we've been trying this year, she says only the Volvo V60 has so far matched it for seat comfort. The 1300 used a lot of oil but never let us down. It had a wonderful starter motor which sounded something like Hollywood sound effects for the fall of Babylon - but it started the engine!