In February 2013 a reasonably solid ’64 shell came up on Ebay. The only serious rot was on the rear parcel shelf which was going to get cut out anyway. Then a couple of weeks later I bought an MGF off Gumtree and now had most of the parts needed for the build.
From the outside I wanted a standard look so the MGF rear track needed to be narrowed. This was done by swapping the MGF rear suspension for Metro GTA and narrowing in the subframe by 105mm. Even then I still needed very inset wheels to fit inside the Imp arches.
With the rear subframe, suspension, engine and gearbox package sorted I set about modifying the shell. Before cutting anything major out a new floor cross member and roll cage were fabricated. This would hold everything square when the rear floor and rear bulkhead were cut away to make room for the transverse mounted engine. The subframe assembly was rolled in (and out many times) to get the positioning spot on before adding the cross member behind it and the rest of the triangulating structure.
Time to move forward to the cabin. Cheap second hand bucket seats were positioned on new brackets and the steering column was replaced with a collapsible Metro part mated to the original Imp rack. A modified MGF shifter and handbrake were added as was the MGF instrument cluster.
Under the hood the MGF master cylinders were grafted onto the Imp pedal box and a new radiator was positioned up front. I didn’t want to cut Lotus style bonnet vents so instead cut an exit hole for the air where the spare wheel well usually is.
The mk1 suspension mounts were swapped to mk2 and the rack lowered to suit but this resulted in too much negative camber which had to be corrected out by modifying the hub carriers. GAZ coil overs are used front and rear. New front hubs were machined to allow me to use Metro GTA wheels and the MGF front brakes.
The shell came without doors. I picked up a pair of mk2 doors which I thought would just bolt straight in. That wasn’t quite the case and I ended up shortening the doors by about 3mm and re-profiling the window frame to get an acceptable fit. When I had the drivers door in place the Imp door handle spoilt the line of the body so a bit of project creep came in with fitting a couple of Fiat Barchetta flush door handles.
Over two years I’ve spent just under 500 hours on this and I guess I am about half way through.
The main jobs still to go are; Passenger door, make an exhaust manifold, bulkhead, tidy the body, paint and assemble.
Maybe another two years
Cliff
The details are great too, like the Fiat Barchetta door handles. I like them lots! 
Worrying that this even exists. 
