ALTERNATE ROOTES

Despite the detail differences, today’s small city cars are almost universally variations on the same theme; squashed-looking five-door hatches with three-pot engines, many of which are built on the same platform. Rewind back to the late 1950s though, and things were very different. BMC may have grabbed the headlines with its front-wheel-drive Mini, but Ford and Rootes were busy going their own ways in delivering frugal family transport for the masses. Enter the Ford Anglia 105E in 1959, and some four years later, the Hillman Imp.

Both cars are often lumped together as mere Mini alternatives, but aside from both having American-influenced styling, they went about solving the small car conundrum in very different ways. Though the Anglia ushered in plenty of fresh features, it maintained a conventional front-engined, rear-drive layout. Rootes, on the other hand went against the trends of the era by slotting in an all-alloy OHC engine driving the rear wheels. Ford’s approach would prove to be the better seller when