Who is who

William Ware: My father joined Rootes from CAV/ Lucas in 1958/9 and was specifically recruited to take over from Miller
I think he left in 1967.

Press Release, 11th May 1963:
Peter Ware, 46-years-old, is the Rootes Group's Director of Engineering. He has been responsible for the overall design and development of the Hillman Imp since its conception and has supervised the work of the team of specialists which took the car from a draughtman's doodle to a production line reality.

Peter Ware : Technician behind the Hillman Imp, the challenger to the Mini car / Anders Ditlev Clausager. - The Guardian, Monday 27 March 2000 01.32 BST. - [Guardian Obituaries]

Press Release, 11th May 1963:
Dick Evison, aged 24, is an ex-apprentice at Rootes and started work on the drawing board in the Imp engine design office two years ago. He is at present Personal Assistant to Peter Ware.

Press Release, 11th May 1963:
Fifty-two-year-old Leo Kuzmicki is Deputy Chief Engineer at the Rootes Ryton plant and has been mainly responsible for developing the engine of the Imp.

Worked as a lecturer at the Warsaw University, but WW2 intervened and he moved to England. After a spell as a pilot during the conflict (a war career which reads like the page of an adventure book), he joined Norton as a sanitary engineer initially. Kuzmicki became well known for his work on combustion chambers and this led to rapid promotion at Norton. He became their chief engineer. In 1955 he joined the Vanwall racing team as chief engineer and a year later he joined the Rootes Group and has worked on the Imp project since its inception.

Press Release, 11th May 1963:
Phil Laugton has been working in close associatiion with Leo Kuzmicki and has played a major part in the original design and development. He is now preoccupied with advanced research work. He is 30 and has worked at Rootes since leaving school.

Press Release, 11th May 1963:
Tim Fry is 28 and as a pupil was trained in engineering at Rootes. He was an original member of the team that conceived and built the very first small car six years ago. His personal experience covers many components and controls. He can handle the car extremely well, having lapped this circuit within 1/5th of a second of Mike Parkes.

Press Release, 11th May 1963:
Pip Manning, aged 49, is the Rootes Group's Quality Director. A former apprentice with the Group, he operates a close liaison with production engineers and is responsible for ensuring that Imps are built to the highest possible standard.

Press Release, 11th May 1963:
Bill Round is the Quality Engineer responsible for all items manufactured at Coventry. He is in charge of the company's C.I.D., which not only stands for 'Criminal' but for Central Investigation Department. He is the policeman who keeps quality, law and order and watches the customer's interest.

Press Release, 11th May 1963:
Harry White (37) has been Chassis Engineer on the Imp project. Suspension, brakes and control, in fact, have been his passion throughout most of his engineering career. He joined the Rootes Group in 1958 and is engaged on engineering research and long term design. The remarkable road holding characteristics of the Imp are largely a result of White's ability.

Press Release, 11th May 1963:
Des Dudley is 31 and has been with the Group five years. He has been working on the Imp project from its inception and has been engaged mainly in suspension design.

From: Frank Marsden
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007

Hi

Frank Marsden Rig test 1961-1964

Still around,
Frank Marsden

[22 Jul 2007] "I am still in contact with a couple of people who were in the Ryton dept:

• Phil Laughton, who worked on engines and
• Tony Griffiths, who designed a new (Mac Strut) front suspension for the Imp. This never made it to production, but would have been a major improvement, not the least reason being that it made much better use of the space at the front."

Telex Sequencer: to telex car codes to various sections along the assembly track (eg. the harness, the axle, the wheels & tyres, the engine drop-in), calling a part number to be used for a type of car that will be there, plus ensure that the body-shells were being delivered to the plant's assembly block in conformity with the telex broadcast plus the line operative's personnel assignment. Opportunities for quite a range of screw-ups.

Later: author (novels; newspaper articles)
mates: Jimmy and Wee Tam (a veteran, nostalgic about Pressed Steel)

[Scott Glover:] Bill Bryant was the Director and General Manager of Hills Precision Castings an independent Company that had been purchased by Rootes some years before. It manufactured Die Castings and plastic injection mouldings. As will be outlined later he was appointed to the position because of his Die Casting knowledge and other factors.
Increasingly he struggled with the job and left the Company in the middle of 1964 and was replaced by George Cattell.

Reporting to him were:

• Bill Collins - Die Casting Manager
• Ken Ganney - Chief Accountant
• Tony Savory - Personnel Manager
• Barry Massey - Chief Buyer
• Doug Hannay - Company Secretary
                 
• Bill Carter - Works Director

Tony Savory was one of a number of ex Military men who had joined Rootes in the late '50s/early '60s. He was very sound and quite unflappable!

reporting to him were:

• Alan Simpson - Machine Shop Manager
• Clive (?) Minton - Assembly Shop Manager
• Garth Vaughan - Quality Manager
• Tom Clay - Planning Manager
• Joe  (?)      - Work Study Manager
• Eric Smith - Toolroom Manager
• Scott Glover - Production Control Manager

Scott Glover : Barry Massey's details you already have, but suffice it to say he knew what he was doing and ran a very efficient Department.

One of the gentlemen who helped to set up the Linwood factory - Alan Lane - he now lives in Victoria, Australia.

Matthew Lambert: "He had some interesting stories to tell - such as the day that the Duke of Edinburgh visited... apparently an electric fault stopped the line working, an employee had to hold two wires together to keep it running. Employees also had to keep driving the same cars around for the newsreels (as unfortunately not enough of them were working!)"

October 2007, Alan Lane and his wife Ray visited the 100-years-of-Hillman celebration at Melbourne (Point Cook)

Mr Lane passed away on August 12th, 2008

...-1963
mid-60s retired

Press Release, 11th May 1963:
Norman Garrad, the Competition Manager of the Rootes Group, has utilised his 40 years of International competitions experience in the planning and organising of long distance endurance testing of the Imp and tests by professional rally drivers.

His son said (2008) that his great interest in motor sport became an obsession.And that he developed the philosophy that life should be a team effort. No one got very far alone. He always involved local distributors the rallies abroad.

In Why finish last? by Andrew Cowan, he is called Jerry Spencer, Rootes Chief Mechanic. Photo 24 shows mr. Spencer in Bombay during the London to Sydney marathon.

Press Release, 11th May 1963:
Barry Campbell (52) is the Group's Home Sales Director. He has collaborated closely with the Imp's design team, bringing the salesman's viewpoint to many of the interesting design features. He has been with the Rootes Group for over 30 years.

Mr. R.A. Wimbush personally owned a Hartwell Imp Group 2: JYP 911D. He was very much an Imp fan.