The Hillman Imp Californian in South Africa

Todays pictures and ahead of the long weekend holidays .

This is one of the many Hillman Imp restorations I have been involved with.

I stopped due to the Optimist on the trailer.

Here to sail in a local regatta I expect?

The car was made in Scotland in 1967 then restored in South Africa over the last 21 months.

Roy

Hillman Imp Californian rebuild in South Africa

The story continues, some say there are only sixty four left of the original production and only around half of those are still on the road?

This one dates back to February 3rd 1967 and was the export version, it had Mozambique plates on it once and was possibly exported there out of South Africa?

The Rostyle 13" diameter x 6" J rims are not original, I had them made specially for the car.

The car still has its original engine block, pistons and crank bearings in it, with new piston rinngs being fitted some years back. With a Sport conversion cylinder head and Stromberg carbs, the car is faster than it was when standard, a nine row oil cooler was fitted when the Sport upgrade was done.

The car is still requiring a new head liner and carpets but otherwise it is almost finished.

Roy

Toylander kits

The Toylander has now moved to new ownership and is based in Wales now.

Welcome to the Toylander website: different models and how to choose the parts you need.

Hello, do you want your youngster to drive his or her own car? One that can take you too*? One that will work on grass and a little off-road*? Here are several answers and all of them set to become the 21st Century's number one Children's Heirloom toy. In the fifties and sixties the Austin J40 pedal car was the one to have but nowadays it's the Toylander and they too will be changing hands fifty years from now.


*Year 2000 specification: two or more children/ adult / adult and children riding, long grass, sloping ground, towing trailer, or several hours running from full charge: Twin wheel drive.
Original 1987 Specification: two young children riding, no adults, flat back garden, short cut grass, pavement / patio, two or three hours running: single drive wheel drive / one motor.

We can offer the kit as a 'Finger Jointed ' method assembly kit, it speeds up the build process so that you can cut the kit out and build the body in the same day.

We can supply the body kit and epoxies only, we use okoume or exterior grade plywoods, it depends on the quality you want to build, the okoume being the lighter option.

Plans can be purchased direct from the company in Wales.

Content © of Toylander Real Life Toys Ltd 2016

Unit 14c, Severnbridge Ind Est., Caldicot, Monmouthshire, NP26 5PT Tel: 01291 626141

http://www.toylander.com/

Roy

• Toylander 1

• Toylander 2

• DBR tractor

• Mayfair

• Army

• MFR tractorBeginning with the Mayfair in 1987 Real Life Toys introduced the Toylander brand of toy Land Rover in 2000 and the number of half size battery powered vehicles trundling around today shows just how popular these Kid's Kit Cars are. Electric toys for children are all the rage, being quiet, clean and powerful. No complaints of noisy toys just the children enjoying themselves. We expect most of these ride on toys will be around as long as their full size counterparts Land Rover, David Brown et al and are a good alternative to the go kart.

Roys dinghy

This is now the only little ship that I own.

Its quite special to my family as we have owned it over thirty years and have used it on all of our yachts, we even took it to St Helena isle, Brasil, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela and of course all the way back to Hout Bay near  Cape Town.

A kit based on the general shape could be produced.

Roy

The Optimist dinghy kit from CKD Boats cc

One of the kits we developed ourselves and by building the first one dry four times before we built it the fifth time and glued together.

We have had a lot of orders for this classic of classic dinghy classes  and have sent them to many countries over the past ten years or so.

This is the first Optimist dinghy we sent to a customer in Switzerland, he has since ordered two more and we shipped them to him earlier this month.

We can also supply the North Sail and the Harken deck gear package.

This is a nice way to finish the Optimist kit, painted on the outside and clear varnished on the inside.

We supply an International Paints guide with each order.

Roy