I UNDERSTAND how Donald M Manson (Letters, May 14) felt when driving his Hillman Imp.

On concluding the deal to buy my first Hillman Imp, the salesman asked me if I had a canvas potato sack. If not, he suggested I should acquire one and fill it with nuts and bolts and place it in the front compartment of the car. Being a little more practical, I measured the "boot" space and constructed a large wooden box for tools. Not just automotive tools but all the smaller domestic tools that had previously resided in the garden shed. Thus the little Imp kept its front wheels firmly on the road.

Alan Potter,

Paisley.

THE place where I worked ran a Hillman Imp van. It came with all the Imp's usual foibles plus a guaranteed failure of the accelerator cable. As two daft apprentice radio and TV engineers we easily overcame this problem by one sitting in front operating steering and brakes while the other crouched in the back over the engine working the throttle to shouts of ''Go'' and ''Stop'' from the front. The possibilities for fun and testing the driver's nerve with this arrangement were unbounded. Nonetheless the Imp was fun. Self-drive cars? We were way ahead with the voice-controlled Hillman Imp van.

J A Smith,

Dunblane.