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By Bill Pollack
A thousand years ago I was racing a very crude but powerful machine called an Allard. Mr. Allard had the crazy notion that he could sell a car without an engine. This may be the answer for Detroit. It would certainly drop the cost of an Escalade and qualify it as a ”No Emissions” vehicle.
This year marked the 36th running of the Monterey Historic Auto Races, and the 3rd time that Porsche was honored as the featured marque. The ‘Monterey Historics’ www.montereyhistoric.com are a special part of many of our lives.
In our case, we just ‘stumbled upon’ them during a 1979 visit to the Monterey Peninsula – the year when Bentley was the featured marque. The image of Phil Hill kicking the tail out on his three-liter blower Bentley as he drifted that behemoth around [what is now] Turn 10 is forever imbedded in my mind. I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven, and this vintage motorsports ‘happening’ has been a focal point of the Warnes family calendar ever since.
For a number of years, the organizers of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance have forced their entrants to drive their beautiful cars 70 miles along the Central California Coast so they can be ogled at for free by the general public as they are parked along Ocean Avenue in Carmel. Not only is this event a test of every entrants cooling system (there are a number of traffic jams), but is also a test of every owners ability to trust Joe Six-Pack not to scratch their million dollar Bugatti's.
Click here to view the Pebble Beach Tour Photo Gallery
Cheers,
Colin
For 2009, no less than six Allards will cross the various auction blocks setup throughout Monterey this August. Of the six Allards, two are most notable in my opinion.
First is the Allard J2 at Mecum (their first Monterey auction). This is one of two Allards that was raced by Carroll Shelby and it should command big numbers, although it did not reach its reserve price at a previous Mecum auction.
The second car is the M Coupe at RM (shown above). This is a very unique car as only three M Coupes were made out of 500 produced. The car is very attractive and unique…hopefully it will bring more than the estimate.
(Click here or the photo above to view the Silverstone Classic Photo Gallery)
I have trouble keeping my core (freeze) plugs in and sure enough, hammering down the M1 at 7.45am last Thursday, en route to Silverstone racing circuit, that familiar "Turkish Bath" moment struck again, and I pulled up onto the hard shoulder. Two bits of luck, I had my good friend and co-driver for the weekend behind in his Honda Civic, and I still had my core-plug bodgers repair kit in my tool box. Co-driver went off to look for water while I started mixing the epoxy metal. I wont bore you with the details, but I spent the rest of the week-end running with the radiator cap undone because the bodge had to stay bodged.
Click here or the photo above to view the photo gallery
For those not familiar with the UK geography, Pickering, in Yorkshire is an area to the north of England with wonderful scenery and has been a gathering place for northern Allards for a few years now.
Several Allards gather for a tour of the North of England and the Pickering weekend becomes the focal point for others to join them and enjoy a social get together and dinner at a great country Inn where several stay over. This year eleven Allard’s were able to get together for the weekend.
The gathering is very well organized by Peter Wright with help from Barry Ogden. The Saturday night dinner is held at The New Inn, a typical country Inn with its own micro brewery making really good ale that we tend to do justice to over the few days.
More news to follow...
Cheers,
Mel Herman
The cowl was painted first then the nose, tail and other parts. After cleaning the aluminum with an aircraft cleaner, the aluminum was primed with PPG epoxy primer followed by a sanding primer. I used an enamel for the finish coat so I could polish out any defects. At this point I discovered my spray gun was totally worn out and causing problems in the paint. I could not stop, and hoped that the defects could be polished out. Some could not. I installed the nose section first so I could install the lights – then the tail, fenders and doors.
I had been working on the car for about 12 hours when I quit for the this June day, went to the house, had supper and went to bed. About midnight I woke up with chills and a fever of 104. Early the next morning I headed for the emergency room where they admitted me to the hospital with pneumonia. A week later I came home but was too weak to work on the car. This set me back a whole month. At this point I was not sure that I could complete the restoration by the October deadline. (A word of caution for those of you who spray paint: even though I used a proper mask and filters I think the cause of my pneumonia was due to paint fumes. My recommendation – get a respirator with an outside air supply). During this month I did do some machine work and fabricated new door latches from brass, then had them chrome plated.
THE SECOND RESTORATION
The Texas World Speedway at Bryan, Texas was chosen as the site for the 2004 ‘Gathering of the Clan’ reunion for Allard owners. In 1969 I had opened the then-named Texas International Speedway with my Allard, the only one there. So I felt it imperative that I attend this Gathering. The car was not in shape for show, so in December 2003 I started a clean up that grew into another frame-off restoration. The completion date had to be no later than October 31, 2004.
THE FIRST RESTORATION
It was quite evident early on that this car needed a total restoration. The years of hard racing had taken its toll. At only 9 years old it was completely worn out.
#3059 was shipped without engine or transmission to a dealer in Wisconsin in 1952. The original color was British Racing Green with cream colored leather upholstery. The dealer installed a full-race Chrysler Hemi and a 1937 Cad-LaSalle transmission. The car was raced in this configuration until the late 50’s when SCCA changed the rules to prohibit cycle fenders. Thus ‘The Bitch’ was retired. The engine was removed and placed in a dirt track car where it expired by exploding. When we bought the car, the owner had replaced the Chrysler with a junkyard Cadillac. After a careful inspection I found the engine had three cracked main bearing webs, so decided to scrap it and a search for a replacement.
Click here or on the photo above to view 3 photo galleries of this beautiful M Types transformation
My M type is chassis no. 716. I bought it November 2005.
35 years ago I had another M type, chassis no. 823 reg. no. JC 9688 which won many concours awards. I sold it to finance a business venture and often regretted it even though the business venture was successful. My old carhas beenregularly rallied by its present owners, John and Kate Manley-Tucker including the Alpine and the Paris-Peking.
Mecum High Performance Auctions is offeringJ2179 at their Mecum at Monterey Auction on August 15. The car is listed as Lot S109.Shelby enthusiasts will know this car as one of two Allards that Carroll Shelby raced in the the early 50's. The auction catalog describes the car as follows...
Mecum High Performance Auctions is offering this K3 3166 at their Mecum at Monterey Auction on August 15. The car is listed as Lot S153. Allard enthusiasts will know this car as Jann Kinzinger's old K3, affectionately known as "Beowulf". The auction catalog describes the car as follows...
Click to watch this rare footage of Tom Carstens J2 #14...One of the most successful sports racing cars of the early fifties as raced by Bill Pollack. Enjoy!
By Bill Bauder
All true car enthusiasts have had a love affair with a car at some time in their life. When I say “love,” I don’t mean the kind of love you have for your mother or children – but the kind of love that’s foot-stomping passionate, obsessive, secretive and suicidal. The ‘I can’t live without’ kind of love. Well this story is about my love affair for one automobile, how it was obtained, why it was so named and how it was restored. Hope you enjoy it.
Andy Picariello has shipped his award winning Allard J2 off to the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) museum in Hershey, PA for the next several months. Andy's J2 is a part of an exhibit titled, "Sports Car in America," which details Americans love of the sports car following WWII. The exhibit covers an extensive cross section of sports car including: MG TC, Mercedes 300SL "Gullwing", Ford GT40 MkV, Volvo P1800, Lotus 7, Jaguar XK120, and Datsum 240Z. The 25 car exhibit will continue through October 11. For more information, please visit the AACA web site at www.aacamuseum.org.
Click here to download a pdf of the flier above.
Click here to see a slide show of Eight Inspiring Garages...the fourth garage will be of particular interest to Allard owners.
We recently learned of the January 13 passing of Yvonne Turner in Grafton, WI shortly after her 79th birthday. Among her many accomplishments, Yvonne – together with her husband, Dr. Tom Turner – played a key role in promoting the Allard marque during the 1980’s and 90’s.
We first met them at the 1989 Monterey Historics, and we were immediately impressed with their charm and enthusiasm, both for the Allard marque, and life in general. Little did we know that, in addition to Tom racing his flathead Ford J2 “8-Ball” (used with Fred Wacker’s personal blessings), Tom and Yvonne were laying the groundwork for Allard being the featured marque for the 1990 Monterey Historic Auto Races.
Here are three videos of the 1953 as filmed by Frank Burrell. Frank Burrell was an engine engineer with Cadillac and he was invited to the race by the Allard team and SAC General Curtis LeMay. Special thanks to Frank's son Barry for sharing this video. Enjoy!
