Freighter Imp

[Richard Coutts-Smith]

Never heard of this, but one is for sale on Ozebay, Item# 120172622798, and is an interesting story.
Do not know how to do the fancy quote stuff , but this is taken of the Ebay site.
"This is the only known example of the Freighter-Lawton designed and manufactured Freighter Imp. It was designed in the period 1956-1958 and made in South Australia. The idea was to produce a light 4WD for the growing market dominated by the Landrover and Willys jeep.

About that time the Australian Army released a tender for a replacement for the currently war time vintage Jeeps being used by the Army. Freighter was confident they could build a vehicle to fit this specification, so they did. It incorparated a number of innovated ideas at the time, independant suspension on all wheels by lamenated torsion bars, tubular cruxiform chassis, fibreglass front mudguards and grill. The engine used was the Standard Vanguard 2 litre engine, well regarded. The transmission and diffs castings were made by Freighters, and the internals were Willys Jeep MB/GPW. This was done as the local engineering industry at the time were producing gears etc .

The Army tested the vehicle, and was impressed by its performance, but they purchased the Landrover for their immediate need as they considered the Imp required further development, the rest is now history.

I have copies of the original Army comparison tests which will go with the vehicle, I also have copies of original blue prints from the factory( from tracking down the production Manager at the time), I have copies of production photos taken during assembly"

Maybe a bit of Austin Gypsy in the mix as well?
Cheerio
Rich.
No link to seller

[phoenix]

I sent Bandiana an e-mail about that, strikes me as something that they might want to get a hold of.

A very rare beast indeed.

[Richard Coutts-Smith]

This little historical gem went for the princley sum of $2638...and 69 cents. Can't help but think this may have been a bargain.
Bye
Rich.