The Hillman Imp is an inspiration in light car design, planned to give new
standards of performance, comfort, road-holding and reliability.
The manufacture in volume of a quality car is an operation both intricate and fluid, with a wide variety of manufacturing, machining and fabrication operations, in concert with a series of assembly lines converging in perfect harmony. Here at Linwood, in the Rootes factory and at the adjoining plant of the Pressed Steel Company, we see the mutitudinous processes that go into the making of the car. Before long, a total of over 5,000 people will be directly engaged on Hillman production at Linwood, with thousands more employed indirectly through services and suppliers.
Every Hillman Imp has over 800 components, and each one, from a body panel down to a minute washer, must fit precisely into the master pattern and stay there - for this is a car, to be driven and shaken and battered by the wind and weather and work. All the mechanical parts are finished to the most critical tolerances by human skill, engineering knowledge and electronic control, and subject to continuous and rigorous inspection.
It is powered by a brilliant light-weight aluminium die-cast engine, which is rear-mounted.
Power for the Hillman Imp comes from the first aluminium die-cast engine to go into large-scale production for any British car. Several cars have employed aluminium cylinder-heads, but the aluminium cylinder-block has been the prerogative of highly specialised power units.
Now, in the Die-Casting Plant, Rootes bring the many advantages of aluminium to the family car. Aluminium is light and strong, resistamt to corrosion, highly durable and able to consuct and dissipate engine heat. The light-weight aluminium die-cast engine is a marked advance in motoring engineering. It is not only efficient for power. It weighs less than half of a comparable unit in cast iron, and this permits a more balanced weight distribution of the car, with superior road-holding characteristics and running ecnomy.
The power unit and transmission are one single unit, with direct engine drive to the rear
wheels, through flexible rubber couplings and universal joints.
The machining of component parts for the trnsmission and suspension units takes place in the Unit Machine Shop, which contains hundreds of high precision machine-tools, and the most modern heat treatment plant and other ancillary equipment.
The engine, transmission and rear suspension are assembled together as one complete power pack on one track, and the rear suspension unit is assembled on an adjacent track. The units are then despatched by conveyor via a transporter bridge to the Car Assembly Block.
It is elegantly styled with high quality finish.
The body pressings are made by Pressed Steel Co. Ltd., and a continuous line of car bodies flows across the transporter bridge, linking the two plants, ready to drop into their pre-determined stations on the final line in Rootes Car Assembly.
To the Linwood Press Shops, the strip steel comes in coiled sheets, with built-in strength and ductility. In the body presses, it comes under the impact of hundreds of tons that convert a flat sheets into a panel with curves and character. In one major pressing, it becomes the recognisable part of a motor-car, with the elegant lines desired by the stylists and demanded by thye owners.
After welding onto one, immensely strong unitary construction, the body passes through the Paint and Trim Shops for the body protection and the fine finish in keeling with the most exacting tradition of British crafts.
The outcome is the world's most advanced light car.
The specification of each single car is organised before any part of it approaches the Car Assembly Block, and electronic punch-card control ensures that each will combine the exact elements planned for it.
As each line of units moves to its end, it is carefully timed, for every car is a combination of varying requirements - in colour and trim and detail - to meet the needs of the different world markets. The car bodies, painted and trimmed, move along the overhead conveyor. In one operation, the body is lowered and mated to the engine and suspension assemblies. Wheels, lights, petrol tank, facia, and all the dressings of a car are added.
In a mass production assembly, every Hillman Imp is designed as an individual. To the owner, Rootes finish means pride of possession. To the manufacturer, it represents quality. And in a competitive age, quality means survival.
A quality-built Rootes product
