Back in time...

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One of the things we love about running this web site is that it allows Allard owners from years past to connect with us. The other day, we recieved an email from Tom Coughlin who once owned this Palm Beach MkII, chassis 72/7104Z. He writes...

"It was probably 1968 when I was reading the Boston Globe classifieds and came across an ad for an Allard. Having attended races at Sebring, Opa-Locka, and Watkins Glen, etc., I was certainly familiar with the name Allard, but not the Palm Beach MKII. I really liked what I saw, and since it was a very rare thing for me to find a sports car that I had never seen before, I bought it. This was a left hand drive, black, Zephyr-powered driver. I have often read that they (Allards) had aluminum bodies, this one was steel. Although I was able to drive it home, the left rear shock mount had been knocked off of the rear axle making the ride downright poor. I never did get it properly sorted, so after eight years of ownership and very little use I decided to sell my wonderful Palm Beach MKII and have owned, driven and enjoyed Porsche 356’s ever since. I didn't take as many photos as I should have, but here are the only two that I have. Man, I was lean and mean at age 27!"

Chassis 7104Z was the second (and last) Zephyr powered Palm Beach MkII, although its currently powered by a Chevy small block. It was one of two delivered to the US (out of six).

Thanks Tom!

For Sale: Allard K2 6015

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9-30-14 UPDATE: Otto has listed the car with RM and it will be offered at RM's Hershey, PA auction on October 10. The car is listed as Lot #263 with an estimate of $80-100k. Click here to learn more about the car.
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Click here or the photo above to view the extensive photo gallery

Otto Meijer has decided it’s time to part with his beloved K2. Otto acquired the car from Canada in 1985, which was in need of more than a little TLC. He restored the car over the next few years, to the condition you see it in today. The car is equipped with a Ford 302 V8 engine (1968) and a Ford 3-speed transmission (many Allards inherited “modern” engines when their original power plant expired). The wheels were converted (properly) from discs to 72-spoke wire wheels and are wrapped in 16 x 6.00 rubber. The hood was replaced without the special bubble and the car was repainted black.

When Otto acquired the car, there were signs of a previous fire in the bulkhead area, which claimed the number plate. Otto, along with the Allard Register have searched extensively to find the original chassis number, but unfortunately the original chassis number remains unknown. The Register has assigned it a temporary chassis number of K2-6015. It’s believed the original paint color was red, but that can’t be confirmed. One tip that may help, the windshield side curtain has a yellow Hawaii registration sticker from 1962.

To learn more about this K2, please click here to read a piece we published about the car and its unique history.

Mystery Car, L-315

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We received the letter below from an Allard owner that would like some help in tracking down the history of his car...
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I hope that your readers can help me identify the full history of my Allard L-Type, chassis 71L-315 but I was not very successful.

My Allard has a "custom made" 2-seater body on the long 112 inch wheelbase chassis. Hood, front and rear wheel arches are made of steel. The front panels, doors and tail are made of aluminum. First I assumed the rear bodywork is a fiberglass shell, but as I scraped some color from inside the bodywork, bare metal occurred and yes, it has a wooden sub-frame. As far as I know the original paintwork was black and the car was delivered in January 1948 to the official Allard dealer in Belfast/UK. In spring 1989 the car was offered on the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale/AZ, but was not sold. In summer 1989 the car was sold to Switzerland. From this time on the history is known.

I hope some Allard enthusiasts in the US will know the missing link of the history. Thanks very much for your support!

Kind regards,
Markus
Switzerland

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Our records indicate that the car was originally delivered with a full body and painted black with brown interior. It was delivered to Hamilton's in Belfast on January 5, 1948. If you know anything about this car, please click here to contact us.

Allard Patches

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Over the years we've collected a few Allard patches...old and new. If you know the history of the more "vintage" patches, please click here to let us know. Enjoy!

Vintage embroidered patch. 3 5/8" wide x 1 3/4" tall

Vintage Allard Owners Club patch, likely for a dress jacket. 3 3/4" wide x 4  5/16" tall

Vintage screen printed patch. 3 1/2" wide x 1 3/4" tall

Embroidered Allard Owners Club patch. 3" round

Vintage embroidered Allard Owners of America patch. 4 1/16" round

Emroidered Allard Register patch, early 1990's. 2 1/2" wide x 3" tall. We have around 12 of these patches remaining, $5/each.

Embroidered Allard patch, early 90's. 4 1/2" wide x 2 1/4" tall

Vinitage embroidered Allard patch on red felt. 3 1/2" wide x 1 5/8" tall

Small embroidered Allard patch, by Bob Lucurell. 2 9/16" wide x 1 1/4" tall

Large embroidered Allard patch by Bob Lucurell, 9 3/8" wide x 4 1/2" tall

Sydney's Specials: JGP 473

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Around the same time that Sydney started work on the Steyr race car, he also started a new sports special that was registered as JGP 473. Although the Steyr took priority, JGP 473 was finished in June of 1947. Tom Lush writes about the special in his book, saying...

"Based on the J frame, with the same wheelbase and track, it was made much lighter by omiting much of the chassis-boxing and cross-bracing, and was lowered considerably by the use of flattened springs. The two-seater body consisted of an aluminum shell mounted over a light tubular framework, and as first constructed without doors, these being added later when regulations governing sports car racing made them compulsory.

Following Sydney's usual weight-savnig formula, the car was fitted with two lightweight seats and remained untrimmed and while in his possesion. The engine* which had been removed from HLF 601 when Leslie took it over had been stripped and rebuilt ready for installation in the new car as Sydney reckoned teh extra power obtained, even for a short time, amply compensated for the work involved in replacing the head gaskets."

The car was very succesful breaking the sports car record at Prescott in 1948. Later, the car passed on to Leslie who continued to race the car with good results. At some point, the front end of the car must must have been damaged badly, because for For Sale photos of the car (via Chiltern Cars) show it with a completely different nose. The car was also fitted with a more liveable Mercury engine. We're not exactly sure what happened to the car, but it's thought to have been destroyed in a fire.

*The engine featured a crude set of cast-iron overhead valve heads from America that predated the Ardun head conversion. These heads were prone to blowing head gaskets on a weely basis. Does anyone know where these heads may have come from?

Back in time...

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Our good friend Kerry Horan sent in the clipping above from the July 1967 issue of Road & Track. By digging through our chassis database, we believe the P1 is chassis 1720. Basically it's the only RHD P1 with black paint and a maroon interior that ever made it to America...that we know of at least. The JR is chassis #3407 that resides in the Mallya Collection. Our records indicate that the car shipped to the US in September 1962 after leaving the car of long time Allard enthusiast Rupert de Larrinaga.

New Allards: Allard Motor Cars

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Bacak in 2011, Jason Wharton created Allard Motor Cars in the UK with desire to build a continuation series of Allard J2X-Le Mans cars. However, after listening to feedback from prospective customers, Jason has changed his plans and now intends to develope a modern interpretation of the J2X Le Mans...which is shown here. From Jason...

"It will be called the ‘Allard™ Le Mans’ and it will have a modern chassis, suspension or brakes, the chief designer & chief engineer are both British but their identity is confidential, we will of course use 2D, 3D & CAD and other technology to produce a authentic, durable and very high quality car, but which at the same time will give the driver a retro design, experiential delight, simple but powerful dynamics. We do have funding and the price of the car will be announced in due course, but it will be in the range $150,000 – 250,000.

We are keen to receive any feedback from all Allard enthusiasts as to the merits of this project in any respect, but especially any thoughts or views on the concept designs, the preferred choice of engine, transmission, whether they might want to buy one, indeed any views at all, above all, what they consider to be the essential ‘DNA’ of an ALLARD, what is special for them about the brand, the heritage, the cars, that sort of thing, as much feedback would really help in the next few months prior to Start of Production (SOP) in 2014."

If you'd like to give Jason your feedback, please click here to send him an email.

New Allards: An Introduction

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There's been a lot of interest in building new Allard's lately...you may call them replica's, continuation cars, reproductions, recreations, or even kit cars (they are NOT kits!). As we all know, there's a fairly limited number of real Allard's to go around and they keep getting more expensive. As you can imagine, there are a few brave entrepenuers out there that would like to meet the demand for "new" Allards. Over the next few posts, we'll feature a few of the current projects that are in the works. Please note, we have no preferance for, or interest in one group or another...we are just posting what they are doing. It's a brave task to do what these folks are attempting and we wish them all the best of luck and we hope to see (and test) your creations on the road soon.

The Moss Files, Engine Installation

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Here's a few more photos from the Moss files. The car in question is K3-3169, which was actually sold by Noel Kirk Motors to a Mr. William Valentine. What's it doing Al Moss' shop you might ask? Well, this was likely the first Allard sold by Noel Kirk and his shop didn't know how to install the engine (a Cadillac in this case), so they called up Al and asked if he would do it. Conveniently, Noel sent along a helper to assist with the project...and that was the last time Al did an engine installation for Noel. This second owner car is currently owned by Dr. Martin Allard (no relation).

Immediate Delivery of Allard Chassis!

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In the past we've highlighted a few "mystery cars" that were built on Allard chassis, but they featured a bespoke body on the rear. We knew very little about these cars until we came across this Allard advertisement the other day. It describes exactly what you received when your ordered your Allard chassis.

“Here is an exceptional opportunity. Immediate delivery can be given of a limited number of fully road tested Allard chassis, either left- or right-hand drive. Chassis specification includes: independent front wheel suspension, Ford V8 engine, Lockheed brakes, Dunlop tyres, front wings, cowl, grille, bumpers, spare wheel, full Lucas electrical equipment including lamps, horns, indicators, wind-screen wiper, instrument panel with all instruments and smith’s Side Jacking system. Coupe chassis wheel base 9’ 4” -£670.

In addition to the above two-seater 8’10” chassis and open four-seater 9’4” chassis at £670 include bonnet, bonnet sides and fittings, not mounted.

As the number of chassis available is limited, immediate application is advised either to the Allard Motor Company or your local accredited Agent.”

Old Magazine Covers, Part 12

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Today's cover is from the August, 1938 issue of Motor Sport...and it's probably the oldest magazine featuring an Allard on the cover. The cover caption reads, “The 3-hour sports car race…K. Hutchinson (Allard Special) takes the last curve leading to the finishing straight on the Campbell Circuit.” The Campbell Circuit at Brooklands was first raced in 1937, but the land was soon pressed into war service in 1939. The Lincoln V-12 powered ELX 50 was built for Ken Hutchinson. According to Tom Lush’s book, Hutchinson and Sydney co-drove the car ran “faultlessly” except for a broken fan belt that was fixed within five minutes. The team finished 9th overall, completing 74 laps at an average speed of 56.5 mph. Not bad for the Allards first real road race.

Special thanks to Kerry Horan for sharing this with us.

The Moss Files, Delivery Day.

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Along with the paper records that the late Al Moss donated to our archives, he also shared with us a number of rare color slides. The first batch of slides presented today give us a look at what it was like to take delivery of a new Allard in the US. These are the "skeleton" crates that all exported Allard cars were shipped in. Additionally, we get to see the joy of a new owner, in this case Basil Panzer receiving his new car. What an exciting day it must have been! The cars were delivered to Al's first shop, which he shared with Jack Gilchrist on 3200 W Olympic Blvd. Both cars were shipped from the Allard factory in late April of 1950. The black J2 of Bazil Panzer is chassis #1571 and the silver/grey L-type is chassis #1701 was ordered by Morgan Sinclair. We should note that the J2 was soon raced by young Phil Hill up Pikes Peak, more on that coming soon...

Site Updates...

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We're pleased to announce that we've updated our Web Links with two new buttons on the top tool bar. The first button, 'Allard Links' is for interesting Allard links. The second button, 'Allard Technical Links' is for everything tech related...parts, manuals, suppliers, etc. If you'd like to recommend a site that we missed, please click here to let us know. We hope you find them useful!

Mystery Allard...

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The photos you see here were sent to us by Bryan who owned this car back in the late 50's. He'd love to find out what happened to it...and we'd love to find out what chassis it is. 

Bryan writes, "Here's a couple of photos of the old dear, known (naturally!) as Sabrina, although these days she could just as well be known as Dolly! She had a 3.5 litre flathead Ford V8, the weight of which made her a bit lazy where cornering was concerned but one didn’t worry too much. Acceleration out of corners, helped by the Ballamy front suspension, was scorching as you can imagine. In any case she had colossal braking power.

I bought her from a friend in about 1957 for £50 and ran her happily for about eighteen months until coming past Newmarket towards Six Mile Bottom the revs suddenly went sky high, without a noticeable increase in speed. Not surprising this. My co-driver told me we were doing fractionally over one ton at the time. I had her towed to my uncle’s farm at Hemingford. About three months later he told me he had sold her, minus any drive from the busted half-shaft, to an American airman from Basingbourne. This man was eager for her and paid me £150 for the privilege. I would surely say she didn’t owe me a penny then, but what would she be worth now?

Apart from this note I have no information about her. She was surely the strangest design of bodywork I have ever seen, almost but not quite an estate car and you could stuff an extra ordinary amount of luggage in through the tailgates. As her driving her, she was a joy and filled in the blank in my life just after I had had a bust at Paddock Bend and decided I wasn’t as good as Stirling and had better quit while I could.

As for her rudimentary silencers – what a lovely noise. I still adore the sound of a V-8!"

If you know anything about the car, please send us a note. This was likely one of the many M types that was sold without a body. It's like a hatchback shooting brake with a roll-top roof. Nice.

Old Magazine Covers, Part 11

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This is another one of our favorite Allard covers. It features Editor John Bond (doing his best Fidel Castro impression) at the wheel of a J2X in the dirt. Additionally, this issue features a 2-page spread on the Allard company. As usual, you can find these issues on Ebay for $5-10.

Correction: The driver was actually Richard Losee. A correction that R&T published 15 years later!

Allard Art

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We received a nice thank you note the other day from an Allard enthusiast with the image above on the front. We thought it was pretty cool so we decided the share it with you. The card was printed in 1994 by the Helmet Goggle and Company in PA....no word on the artist though. The caption on the back reads, "1950 Allard J2, This British sports car, powered by either Ford, Chrylser, Cadillac V-8 engines, gained much success throughout Europe and the United States." It looks a bit more like a J2X to us though.

Scottsdale RM Preview: JR-3403

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This is probably one of my most favorite Allards, JR-3403...just one of 7 built. The car was raced at Le Mans in 1953 by Zora Arkus Duntov and Ray Merrick for 65 laps before retiring. After Le Mans, the car was sold to Col. Reade Tilley of the Strategic Air Command. This JR (also called a J2R) is ready to race and it will likely gain the new owner entry into the most premier vintage race & rally events around the world. To learn more about the car, click here to view the RM post. The car will be sold as lot #115 on Friday January 18. The estimated selling price is $350-450,000, which I believe to be fairly modest. With the right bidders, this car could double that estimate and be worth every penny.

Photos by Scott Miller, courtesy RM Auctions

Here's a video of the car prepping for Le Mans, courtesy of Cadillac Engineer Frank Burrell: