Imperial Safari (1971-73)

Imperial Safari (1971-73)
 
First year of production:  1971
 
Company:  Imperial Typewriter Co., Leicester, England
 
Litton continued to produce the Imperial-designed Messenger portables until 1967 and kept Imperial’s factories in Leicester and Hull operating until 1973. Long before then, however, Litton had moved portable typewriter production to Holland and Portugal.
 
The first non-British Imperial portable came, in 1965, from the factory Royal had established at Leiden in Holland when taking over Halberg. This model, best known as the Royal Skylark, was called the Imperial 1000.
 
It followed a similar path to the Imperial/Royal Safari (aka Sabre), and later morphed into the ABC/Cole Steel portable as the Imperial 2002, made at the Messa factory outside Lisbon in Portugal.