Correspondence...
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We love to hear from our readers, especially those that write us with memories of an Allard their family used to own. We received one of those letters a few days ago from Roger in the UK, he writes...
"I was browsing your site as my father had an Allard P1 saloon in the 1950's. He bought it second hand sometime after Allard's success at the Monte Carlo Rally. I know this because my father was rather chuffed when his brother in law saw it (the brother in law was a keen rally enthusiast and saw my father as a stuffy solicitor I think) and was rather envious of the car because of the win.
The car was black with the large grill and had the registration number WMC 515. The car was always called William by the family because of its number plate.
I remember very little about the car as I was very little when we had it. I remember my father got the car up to 90 mph on one occasion and was very amused when I piped up from the back saying "A braver man would have done a hundred".
I am pretty sure it was this car that to open the boot you lifted it until the support clicked and to lower it you lifted it and when it clicked you could lower it down again. If the boot is like that then this is the one that fell on my father's back when he was leaning into the boot, which produced a lot of swearing. I know, I was standing next to him!
During the 1950's the family holidayed in Pembrokeshire. As we lived in north London we would set of long before dawn. This is long before the Severn Bridge or motorways and the journey took all day. We would drive there and back in the Allard. On one occasion we were well into the journey when my father suddenly realized that when he was cleaning the car the previous day he had forgotten to put the hub caps back on. So we drove all the way back home to put them on. On another trip to Pembrokeshire it was discovered that the boot hadn't been closed properly and some Wellington boots had fallen out. It shows how little traffic there was then that on retracing our steps they were found in the road where they had fallen out.
My father replaced the Allard in the late 50's with a second hand Humber Super Snipe Mk IV. Four doors, larger, but not as sporty."
Thanks for writing Roger!
