I've been puzzled for a long time by a special edition Hillman Super Imp "Spring Special" released in UK in 1967 in an edition size of about 500, in unique metallic colours of silver or copper. The story is that these were originally intended as special batches for Canada, but the order was cancelled so they were redirected for UK sale. But I don't understand how they could switch from a presumably LHD CDN spec to confirmed RHD for UK sale. Other features were bumper underguards as used for CDN and uprated heaters for CDN winters, so it sounds as if the cars had been built before being switched.

So was there any reason why CDN would have taken a RHD batch as originally intended?? Is there anything in one suggestion I've seen that some CDN states still hung on to driving on left in 1967, although most of country had driven on right since 1924??

I'd be tempted to disregard the CDN explanation, but it doesn't answer the installation of uprated winter heaters (which is a confirmed feature). So any thoughts welcome.

Found this thing while looking for an explanation : http://www.capercailliebooks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Linwood-and-the-Hillman_low.pdf . The Spring Special you're talking about is in page 30 . Tried in english and french to have an idea of why we would have ordered a RHD version or why the order was cancelled but found nothing else than the fact that the order was cancelled . Could understand if it was the van and it was set to be used for deliveries as we had for a while before they switched to the Ford Transit Connect ( which, ironically can do the same job while being LHD.. ) but this job is clearly not the Spring Special's purpose.... Newfoundland is the last place to drive on the other side and they did change in 1947 ( according to some websites ) before entering Canada in 1949.

I think it might be a : an error somewhere in the order ( no matter if its an assembly error or an administrative one ) but i don't really believe its the reason, i mean, its a car manufacturer, not a single guy who works in his garage during the weekends...
or b; creating a really special, collectible edition of it and the idea was cancelled either by the manufacturer or the ones who imported the cars in Canada...

Was the regular version of it selling well in Canada ? if not , might be why it got cancelled . Probably was an easier ( and money/time saving ) operation just to switch it from LHD to RHD like you said and sell it as a special edition instead of removing all the CDN-spec stuff from it

My two cents: the import was really intended for another country and Canada was just used as fake destination place, but I can't think of any RHD, wintery place, where in the 60s an English company would have been too ashamed of exporting their products.

Imps were sold in CDN, possibly as Hillman without Sunbeam rebranding. I've seen references that these were mainly aimed at US (where it was Sunbeam Imp Sports Sedan from start) with CDN as a sideline, but when US sales tailed off (1965-66-ish??) planned further US batches were switched to CDN where sales continued to 1966-67 eg this 1966 one, and might even have gone on until 1968-69 although this is only speculation.

Is it unlikely that they just fitted RHD parts to them (dashboards etc) to convert them before sale here?

I think it's more fundamental than that - there'll be panels in the bulkhead which get punched out at the pressings stage for steering column, pedals etc. Plus different attachment points for the front axle. Once a car is built as LHD, it would have to be individually converted to RHD (or vice versa) with a big dismantling task. It's feasible for one-off specialist conversions or rebuilding classic cars, but for a big batch would not be economic within factory budgets. Much easier to divert them to another market which drives on the same side, even if you have to dump them at discount prices - there were lots of Europe markets taking Imps at the time who could have filled in.

Agree, switching from a side to another must be more complicated that just push the dashboard ( and pedals ) to the other side of the car... i guess i should had followed the proverb i saw once in the office of a place i was working in that was saying : " Think, it might be a new experience... " before writing yesterday......


So , doing the thinking i was supposed to, my brain came with the idea that maybe there was a change in a canadian law that made the cars unable to be sold here, something like the 15 yo grey import . Found on the Transport Canada website that the grey import law became effective in 1971 but did not found anything about what the law was before that.

RHD cars are not illegal in Canada ( as long as we don't drive them on the side of the road they used to be ) but each province seems to have its own way to deal with them like Québec who pushed the limit to 25 years old for them a few years ago for passengers cars unless it was registered before March 2011