Quote Originally Posted by Rod Grimwood View Post
The Climax motor used in alot of the Imps was the same unit used on Fire Brigade water pumps, and once this was discovered by some people, a lot of pumps were repowered and the original engines found real homes in cars. There are still some classic old pumps around with climax engines (not many). They were light and could be easily moved or carried around and had good grunt.
In fact, the Hillman Imp production engine was based on the Coventry Climax FWMA 750cc and the Rootes group applied for permission to modify the design for their use. The mis-nomer that the Imp engine was a fire pump engine stemmed from the fact that all subsequent Coventry Climax race engines were loosely derived (but significantly redesigned) from the original fire pump engines.