The Imp’s shell was hiding a number of rot spots, all of which were cut out and replaced with fresh metal Greetham Imps might have never attained the levels of popularity associated with comparable companies dedicated to rival offerings from Ford or BMC, but they their work was undoubtedly effective and retains a cult following to this day. One example of classic tuning from a small company utterly dedicated to a specific model was Greetham Engineering, a small, Chesterfield based concern dedicated to wringing extra performance from the Imp. It was an era when working on and tuning your own car wasn’t so much a hobby as a Sunday afternoon ritual, with garages the length and breadth of the land more than happy to attempt to coax extra performance from your common or garden model, for a fee of course. Many of these firms specialised in one particular kind of car or type of engine, and for much of the period old school tuning was very much the order of the day think ported and polished heads with enlarged valves, free-flowing manifolds, chunky cams and big, throaty twin DCOE setups. The passage of time has served to obscure the significant role played by small, family run automotive tuning firms, the kind which had their heyday in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.

Hillman imp