Reach for the Sun!

Sydney Allard was a survivor and visionary. After his company stopped building cars, they focused on selling performance car parts and...sun roofs. Why sun roofs? Today sun roofs are commonplace on cars, but back in the late 60's and early 70's they were a rarity. Allard was the UK distributor for Golde sun roofs, a German company that was the leader in this emerging industry. Click here to download the Allard Golde catalog. Special thanks to Kerry for sharing!

The Fast and the Furious...

We just uploaded this excerpt from the movie "Fast and the Furious"...not the Vin Diesel version, but the original "classic" from B-movie legend Roger Corman. In addition lots of great racing footage...there are a bunch of Allard's featured...can you spot them all? We believe most of the footage was shot at Pebble Beach and Torrey Pines. Enjoy!

2015 Allard Sports Cars News Update...

Things are heating up at Allard Sports Cars, the business endeavor of Sydney’s son Alan and and Grandson Lloyd. In effect, the Allard family name hasn’t left the automotive world since they first started building cars in the late 30’s. The family business has evolved over the years from building cars to manufacturing and selling performance automotive parts. If you haven’t heard already, Alan and Lloyd have started building cars again, with assistance from Allard Engineers Dudley Hume and David Hooper. They got started by buying and restoring the first Palm Beach Mk2, Chassis #72/7000Z. While restoring the Palm Beach, they fabricated another chassis, destined to become a Palm Beach Mk3. This car is an evolution of MK2, and included double wishbone front suspension; a much needed departure from the split axle suspension. They also intend to offer a continuation of the Allard JR sports racing car. Read more below from Lloyd Allard…


The New Allard Palm Beach MK3:
You may wonder, why build an Allard Palm Beach MK3? Well, the answer is simple, during the restoration of the Palm Beach Mk2 we had the opportunity to copy the chassis while it was available, a chassis jig was fabricated following an American design which I knew would be suitable. The new Allard chassis was assembled in only a basic form initially, then put to one side while my father and I pressed on with the restoration project ahead. Once the Mk2 was nearing completion, we started to make progress on the MK3 chassis once more, a Jaguar 3.4 with Moss gearbox was secured, along with a rear axle. All the other parts, which include both rear trailing arms, panhard, front suspension mountings, both front and rear bulk head rails were all fabricated in house. This was the most convenient way to have a prototype rolling chassis available for people to view at any shows we wished to attend. The debut of the new chassis tool place at the NEC Classic in November 2014. The response was very uplifting. 
The chassis for the new Allard PB Mk3 is essentially the same as the original apart from the suspension design, the front suspension is now a double wishbone affair, the rear suspension we will offer two formats, either live axle or De Dion, to be honest the De Dion is the preferred as we intend to offer the Palm Beach Mk3 in race trim. 

Allard Palm Beach Mk3, a car planned and discussed in 1959 can now be purchased as a 1959 model, authentic Allard with continuation chassis number and built by members of the Allard family once more, offering good investment potential. The car can be built to road or race specification with a Jaguar 6 cylinder engine. There are a few changes from the original which include disc brakes arrangement, improved trimming options and a hinged bonnet design much like the JR model. 
Allard Palm Beach Mk3 Specifications:

  • Engine: Jaguar 3.4 XK engine 
  • Rear Axle: Choice of De Dion or live axle arrangements 
  • Brakes: Disc front & rear (assisted) 
  • Gearbox: Jaguar Moss box (various ratio options) 
  • Steering: Rack & Pinion (assisted and non assisted options) 
  • Body: Fully aluminium construction (including some body design changes) 

Allard JR continuation HTP FIA Specifications:

  • Engine: Cadillac 331 
  • Rear Axle: De Dion 
  • Brakes: Drum 
  • Gearbox: Lasale 4 speed 
  • Steering: Marles 
  • Body: Fully aluminium construction

Correspondence...

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!

We're Back!

If you've been here before, you probably noticed that things look a little different around here. We're excited to announce that we've finally completed the transition to our new web site! The new web site is fully scaleable to whatever device you're viewing our site one...whether it's a computer, tablet, or cell phone. So what else is different? The photos are a lot bigger now and we have really cool photo galleries. We've also made a bunch of changes to the Car pages. There's still some work to do, but the big stuff is complete. Please take a look around and let us know what you think especially if you find any problems...we hope you like it!

What you doing the last weekend in May?

 

You could say it's been a few years since we've hosted an Allard gathering, but we are happy to announce that we're partnering with Steve Earle and the SVRA to have an Allard gathering at the 2015 Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival! Unfortunately there are aren't too many details at this time, but they'll be firmed up in the next few weeks (things have been a bit crazy at General Racing with the recent SVRA merger). What we can confirm are the dates...the gathering will take place on May 29-31 (the weekend after Memorial Day). The gathering won't be just for racers, we'll have a special car show, Allard paddock, dinners, wine tastings, and even a poker run! If you are interested in coming, please click here to email us. We hope you can make it!

Review: "Racing Through The Forest"

The premier showing of RACING THROUGH THE FOREST took place at Pebble Beach’s Spanish Bay resort as a part of the Monterey Peninsula’s 2014 ‘Car Week’.

The focus of this 80-minute film documentary is the Pebble Beach Road races that were run just a few miles from this pristine golf resort. This film gives a succinct portrayal of this historic venue – beginning with the inaugural 1950 running, through the events in 1956 that set the stage for the purpose-built Laguna Seca Raceway some 20 miles to the east.

By means of a well-paced balance of narration, historic race footage and interviews with key players, it effectively presents the Pebble Beach Road Races as a microcosm of the post WWII sports car racing scene in the US.  The Pebble Beach racecourse comprised of a series of hay bale-lined two lane streets and some unpaved roads winding through the towering Monterey pines of Del Monte Forest. Most of the cars in the 1950 race were an array of British imports and California home-built specials, and the drivers were all amateurs – some with strong track records, but many with little or no training or experience.

While the Pebble Beach course itself saw little development in the seven years of its operation, the story clearly reflects how both cars and drivers became more sophisticated – and faster – with each passing year. It all came to a head in 1956 when Ernie McAfee and his Ferrari went out of control on the downhill home stretch, became airborne and flew sideways into one of the aforementioned Monterey pines.

The timing of this production was most fitting, as it includes a blend of familiar, and also never-before-seen race footage – along with current day interviews with several race veterans reflecting on their experiences from 60+ years ago. They included Bill Pollack, winner of the prestigious Del Monte Trophy in ‘51 and ’52; and Derek Hill, son of Bill’s close friend Phil Hill, who won the main event in ’50, ’53 and ’55.

Both Bill and Derek, along with other Pebble Beach Race veterans, were present at this premier showing. They all did a great job of sharing their insight and experiences after the screening. The show’s poster is focused on Tom Carsten’s iconic black Allard J2 that was Bill Pollack’s primary mount, a car that gets considerable footage throughout the movie.

This is a very well done professional production, a ‘must see’ film for all vintage racing enthusiasts. The producers are currently concentrating on film festivals and other private screenings, with a showing at the Blackhawk Museum on Sept. 19, and the Peterson Museum in LA in October. After that they are preparing for Sundance Film Festival in January. We’ll share more when information about distribution comes available.

-Chuck Warnes

Early autumn in the high peaks of the Adirondacks is about as perfect a time as one can imagine for a wee motoring adventure.  Thus we accepted the invitation to take the J2 Allard north for the 7th annual Keene Mountain Hillclimb reunion in Keene, New York.  Keene is just a long stone's throw from Lake Placid.  In the early days of the event, which ran from 1950 to 1966, Allards and Allard personalities figured large.  More on that later.

We motored up on Friday the 19th in beautiful sunny weather.  While only late September, the high peaks were already sporting the first blush of autumn's colors.  It was lovely.

Meeting at Marcy Field in Keene, a tiny grass airstrip snuggled within the mountains, we had the warmest of greetings from the organizers, Mike and Ann Hartson, who could not have been more welcoming. They created this reunion seven years ago and are credited with keeping it and the memory of the hillclimb alive.

The Keene Hillclimbs were a fixture in the early days of postwar sports car competitions in the northeast of the USA but, perhaps oddly enough, they didn't actually begin with the SCCA. In those days around New York there were several clubs that vied for prominence.  The SCCA was one of them and it ultimately succeeded.  Another was the Motor Sports Club of America (MSCA).  Also founded and centered in New York, it is said that the Motor Sports Club may have been for folks who either weren't welcome in the SCCA or at least didn't feel welcome.  There's a fair bit of controversy there to this day so we'll leave that discussion alone for now.  Suffice to say that Keene was first a fixture of the Motor Sports Club.

By the early fifties the Motor Sports Club was well established with its signature event, the "Great American Mountain Rally."  It started in Manhattan or in Poughkeepsie, NY, and ran up into the Adirondacks or into the Green Mountains of Vermont.   One of the usual stops was the Mountain House at Keene and a hillclimb took place there.   Later the hillclimb became a standalone event.

Nowadays the hillclimb reunion is a gathering of enthusiasts with appropriate cars from the entire span of the event.   Some of the original drivers come as well, though their number is dwindling. There are three or four runs up the hill, but it is no longer a speed event. For one thing, one might meet traffic coming down.  That experience could prove interesting, but not too pleasant for the soccer mom motoring down the hill.  That being the case, we took out the rollover bar and popped on the head rest fairing.  Instead of full face Bell helmet we took along a period cork-lined leather one.  Nomex was forsaken in favor of an old leather flying jacket and a pair of old fashioned driving gloves.  The Allard and yrs trly looked the part.

The hill at Keene is one and one half miles long with eight twisting turns and a "thank-you-m'am" bridge.  The grade ranges from almost nil to as steep as 18 percent and rises 800 feet from the starting line to finish.  The bridge has since been replaced with something more driver friendly.  Otherwise, the course is as it was fifty years ago.

In the 1954 event Erwin Goldschmidt won handily in his 4.5 liter Ferrari.  He may have driven an Allard in an earlier event but hadn't won.

In 1952 the only Allards competing were a K2 driven by one John Bye of Montclair, New Jersey and a J2 driven by Fred Nemith of Troy, New York.  Nemith finished fifth overall.  As one would expect, there were a number of J2's and J2X's figuring in the results over the years, but, at Keene, the most successful Allard driver of them all was the late Bob Bucher in his ex-Goldschmidt JR, known as "Big Jake."  Big Jake was caddie powered and was likely the most successful of all of the JRs when they were new.  (Yes, a case can and should be made for the one Sidney used in the UK for hillclimbs and some circuit races.)  When Bucher drove it the paint was still what I believe it had been for Goldschmidt, dark red with a white and blue band around the grill opening. Near the end of its career it had a fairly low full width rollover bar and may have been repainted a brighter red.    Bucher turned in FTDs in '56, '57 and '58, setting new course records every year.  He was quite a driver.

By '66 the event was finished due to the town finally getting tired of the noise and the folks who lived along the road complaining that they couldn't get in and out of their driveways while it was going on.

The organizers would seem to have unlimited enthusiasm so the 8th reunion taking place next autumn must be considered a forgone conclusion.   We rather expect to be there.   Even more Allards would be a pleasant addition.

                                                                           jimdonick

Goodwood Revival, 2014

This year's event saw only one Allard racing...Bob Francis in his ex-Mille Miglia J2. Bob started out on the 10th row in 25th position. By the end of the 90 minute Freddie March Memorial Race, Bob and his co-driver worked their way up to 12th place. Congrats!

Click the below to watch a brief recap of the race along a with a graceful spin by Bob.

Allard Art...

We’ve always been fans of automotive art, specifically Allard related art. One of our favorite artists is Stefan Marjoram (www.stefanmarjoram.com/art.htm) and we commissioned him to create an Allard sketch, which is shown above. We’ll be printing a limited number of t-shirts, note cards, and maybe a few prints – all available for reasonable prices. We’ll let you know on the web site when they are available.

Le Mans, 1951

We are excited to share these recently unearthed photos from Le Mans in 1951. It's interesting to note the dramatic change between Le Mans in 1951 and what the race has become today. The #2 car of Alfred Hitchings & Peter Reece is featured prominently. The team crashed on lap 22, but managed to make the end of the race, finishing 214 laps. Unfortunately their last lap took more than 30 minutes, which disqualified the team.

Who can you spot in the photos?

 

Allards Two Fastest Sports Cars on Mount Equinox Hillclimb 2014

Finishing 2nd and 3rd behind a single-seat Lotus 18 Formula Junior, the Whimsey Racing Team of Allard K2 and J2 proved the fastest two-seat sports cars on the slopes of the fabled Mount Equinox in 2014.  Run on the 9th and 10th of the August, the annual jewel in the crown of the VSCCA calendar had 39 entries this year ranging from E-Type Jaguar, Aston Martin and Maserati to MGs of all shapes up through the MGA, a pair of SAAB Quantums (highly strange, even for an Allard guy), God-knows-how-many Lotuses (Lotii?) several prewar specials, and a Hillman Minx of all things. 

Allards have always done pretty well at Equinox from the earliest days.   For a number of years, the event was chaired by Bob Girvin who always managed a spectacular climb in his Chrysler-powered Allard GT.  Back in '51 or '52 the large engine class was won by an Allard K2 and lately yrs trly has done pretty well in the K2, and then in the J2.

For 2014 the road surface was as bad as anyone had ever seen it.  Remember, this is a road in the mountains of Vermont with logging trucks rolling up and down it through the ice and snows of the winter.  For those of a certain age, it's not unlike the Ho Chi Minh Trail after the B-52s were done. Over the years I've suffered stress cracks to the body as well as broken gearboxes, engine mounts and such.  The road is about 5.3 miles long with over 3000 ft of elevation change.  There are eleven or more hairpins and countless turns and curves of lesser radius.  It's a tough challenge.

Even with that all taken into account, this weekend was special.  Mike Donick at the wheel of the K2 managed to break the magic five minute mark with a 4:59.18, and beat my best time (set a few years ago) in that car by nearly a second.   He was second overall behind a magnificently driven Lotus 18. The K2 has proven a great vintage racer for over thirty years.  A couple of seasons ago I beat a pretty serious Aston DB3S in a road race at Lime Rock Park

Yrs trly took a while to get dialed in this year (he's not getting any younger), but by end of weekend was third behind Mike and a second and a half ahead of the next car, a Lotus VII.  The next car was a pretty impressive E-Type.

This is being written a couple of days after the event and the two of us are still smiling.

                                                           jim donick

For Sale: Allard K3 3192

Click here or on any of the photos to view the gallery

The Allard Register records show that 46 of the 63 Allard K3’s produced still exist. Chassis 3192 is one of the most original preserved Allard K3’s.

This car was delivered to Noel Kirk Motors on Los Angeles on July 9, 1953 where it was fitted with the 331 Cadillac engine and three-speed transmission that it still retains – along with left hand remote shifter located in the door well. 3192 was ordered with green paint and green interior and it still carries that original color combination (most K3 interiors have been redone in black or tan). The car was repainted and the original seats were re-done in 1990 prior to the Monterey Reunion. Also included are the original tool kit, Smith’s side jack, and chrome Noel Kirk badge.

The car’s original owner, Dan Schacht of LA, put 23,000 miles on it before knee problems forced him to park it in 1962. The current owner, Dr. Martin Allard (no relation to the UK Allard family), purchased the car in 1979. Despite the 17-year hibernation, the only work required was some minor tweaking to free up the stuck Lincoln Zephyr gearbox.

Martin has driven the car on a regular basis, putting about 26,000 miles on it over the past 35 years. In 2012 Martin and his K3 completed every mile of the North American Tribute Mille Miglia. This unrestored K3 was featured on the 1980 Allard Owners Club Christmas card, and looks just as handsome today as it did 34 years ago.

Martin has decided it is now time to part with 3192. This 2-owner car is located in Carmel, CA and is being offered for $165,000. Interested parties should the consignor Mohr Imports...please click here to contact the seller.

Now that's an oval track...

We love it when Allard owners tell us what they are doing with their cars...the other day we found a letter from Alain Rueede showing us his latest exploits...here's his email...

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Dear Colin,
 
I hope you are well. I saw that you posted our Youtube Onboard-Clip from last years Klausenrennen on your website – thank you. It’s always very interesting to visit your site – excellent work!
 
Our Allard is going well and we just had another exiting moment with the J2.
 
We send you below a link of a very unique event we just participated with our Allard J2 last week in Zürich-Oerlikon. It’s named “Indianapolis at Oerlikon”. It’s Switzerland’s oldest sporting arena – 102 years old. It’s an oval track of only 333m length and with 44.5° banking! It is normally used for bicycle races...but one time a year for historic cars and bikes. At the best bicycle event they have 1,500 spectators – with the cars and [motor] bikes 4,500 to 6,000!
I don’t know how many Allard’s raced in an oval track till today – but in this type of small oval it could be the first!
-Alain
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Thanks for sharing Alain!

The Family Car

-Click here or on any of the photos to see more of the Porter J2X.

By Tom Porter

When we consider the famous Allard J2X’s, I would suspect that few would associate them with a small auto dealership in St Louis Park MN. But yet, in the spring of 1952, five of the 83 J2X’s produced were delivered to Walker Imported Motors. Three of them were (3057, 3058 and 3060) were all a part of the same shipment arriving on May 24, and were sent to Fond du Lac WI.

There they were turned over to Carl Kiekhaefer to be fitted with specially modified Chrysler 331 hemi engines. Kiekhaefer owned Mercury Marine, manufacturer of Mercury outboard boat motors. He participated in the 1952 and 1953 Carrera Panamericana where he entered hemi-equipped Chrysler Saratogas in ’52, and ran four Chrysler New Yorker Specials in the '53 race. He then moved on to NASCAR where he was the moving force behind the Chrysler 300 NASCAR success story of 1955.

J2X 3058’s Chrysler hemi engine was equipped with a Weiand manifold and twin Carter four-barrel carbs. The car was first sold to Eddie Jones of St. Paul MN. Eddie entered the car in Wisconsin’s Elkhart Lake Road Race in the fall of 1952, carrying the number 9. The car didn't finish the race as the gearbox broke during Saturday’s practice. Evidently the ‘48 Ford Pilot 3 speed box wasn't robust enough to handle the hemi’s torque. The car doesn't appear to have raced again.
-------
My father, Bill Porter, was still in high school when he and my uncle Jim drove the family’s Jaguar XK120 from Milwaukee up to Elkhart Lake. The Jag was entered in the Memorial event, with Air Force pilot Donnie Warren at the wheel. The event went fairly well, but the Jag was out of brakes and filled with hay bale residue when Warren returned it to Bill and Jim. While they were watching the event, they happened to notice an Allard J2X parked next to the Pine Point Resort. They thought it was the coolest thing they had ever seen, and they ended up taking lots of pictures of the car. The hook was set with my old man – someday he was going to own an Allard.

Fast forward to the Milwaukee Hot Rod Show at the Wisconsin State Fair Park in November 1969. My dad and his close friend, Mark Daniels (who at the time owned Maston Gregory’s C-Type Jag), went to the show and came across a cream and blue Allard J2X for sale. The owner, Richard Blaha gave the young men his contact information, and upon leaving the Hot Rod Show, Mark passed the information on to my mother. She subsequently bought the J2X as a surprise for my dad.

Shortly thereafter – while Bill Porter was at work – Mrs. Porter succumbed to the temptation to take the Allard for a ‘little spin’ around the block. She fired it up in the garage, shifted it into reverse, and gave it a little gas as she released the clutch. It immediately squirted out of the garage and proceeded 100 yards across an adjacent meadow before she was able to bring it to a halt. It took her a couple minutes to regain her composure and shift it into first. Releasing the clutch resulted in ‘déjà vu all over again’ before she reigned it to a halt just before crashing into the garage. At that point, she coerced her children to push the car back into its stall and swear to never breath a word of the event to their dad.

Dad, together with us kids, commenced doing some mechanical work on the car, and repainted the Allard in our garage. As we were going through the car, we found handwritten information that mentioned Eddie Jones as the original owner. That made it easy to trace back and find the car’s history, and correlate that information with my dad’s 1952 pictures from Elkhart Lake. We were thus able to verify that this was the #9 Allard, and those photos were very helpful with our restoration.

We have a great black and white picture of my mother and father on the cover of June Sprints Program from the early ‘70’s. I felt pretty cool as a kid being able to ride along with my dad as he and Mark Daniels stormed around Milwaukee’s northern suburbs in our Allard and Mark’s Jag C-Type.

My dad eventually parked the Allard when the keys in the stub axels started to fail. He planned to do a complete restoration, and stripped the car down to the frame, where it sat in the garage until 2002. The biggest reason he didn't restore the Allard sooner was that he had too many other cars and not enough space to properly undertake the project. And of course his law practice and family of six took priority.

During the ensuing years my dad raced the ex-Auto Delta 2 liter Trans Am championship-winning Alfa GTA of Horst Kwech in the C Sedan class from 1974 to 1978. He then bought a TIGA Sports 2000 2 liter car which we still have. He raced this car until 1983 when he bought another TIGA SC83 which I currently vintage race.
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Dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2002, and the family decided it was time to restore the Allard so that he could have a chance to drive it again. He got to drive the car around the Elkhart Lake road circuit on several occasions in 2005, and it won a reserve award from Road & Track magazine with the car during the racecar concours at the 2005 Kohler International Challenge.

The least I could do for my dad was to give him back this car after all the amazing experiences he had growing up around the cars, circuits and people of road racing. To my knowledge it is one of the most well preserved Allards around. It is completely original, except for the 42 gallon fuel cell inside the original tank. The car has the original hemi engine, Ford transmission and enclosed driveline - along with the original generator and tach drive. We drive the car weekly, and drive it up to Road America at Elkhart Lake 3-4 times per year for various vintage events,.

          I now understand and appreciate the Allard Allure and the Grendel Fable!
 Special thanks to Joe Oliver for sharing his photos of the Porter J2X. To see more of his work, please visit his web site at www.M-V-Photo.com

Another Missing Family P1...

We're not sure what it is about P1's, but they seem to have found a real soft spot in the heart of their previous owners. Of all the requests we get to track down missing cars, the vast majority of them are for P1's. It's not hard to see why...distinctive styling, big V8, sporty suspension (for a late 40's sedan), and suicide doors...very cool. Please see David's request below and click here if you can help us!

Hello fellow Allard lovers.

Firstly, thank you for your web-site that has motivated me to track down the Allard my father brought to Australia in 1956. It was a black P1 that was sold originally to the steel works manger in Swansea (Wales). Photo of it here in Australia attached.

My father sold it due to parts being difficult to access. He told me that he heard that the car was later used for racing in Victoria (Australia). Any help with tracking down this car (I am an avid car restorer) would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards, David Richards.