The Legend You Never Heard Of - Allard | The Bad Blonde Car History

The Legend You Never Heard Of - Allard | The Bad Blonde Car History
A car company that many of you haven’t heard of, that had two of the greatest names in the business behind it’s wheel at one point, a car company that tried to create a “Corvette Slayer” BUT proved to be a company that could not keep up with the competition, today we are going to be talking about the rise and fall of the Allard Motor Company.
Let’s start this journey with Sidney Allard, the man behind the brand and winning rally driver.
Allard's love of racing began in 1929 with a Morgan three-wheeled that was later converted to four wheels. Allard raced his morgan at the famed Brooklands.
This converted Morgan and his subsequent victories in trials would spark a passion for racing and improving race cars.
The first ever Allard automotive was built to compete in trial events which we timed rally event on tough terrain nearly impassable by most vehicles. Sydney Allard built this car in under three weeks. It was powered by a Ford flathead V8 coupled with a body mostly pirated from a Bugatti.
This car launched a spur of interest and soon Allard were built to order.
Come 1937, Allard began creating modified Fords to sell and within two years twelve Allard specials had been built.
In 1945 the Allard Motor Company was officially founded on Clapham High Street in London. During the war, Allard had built up an inventory of easy-to-service Ford mechanicals and he paired that with bodywork of his own design.
With a steel chassis, Sydney Allard released three post-war models; the J – a competition sports car, K – bit larger road car, and the L = a four seater. All of which were based on the Ford Pilot chassis and powered by a stock sidevalve V8 with a single carburetor.
The bodies to the trio were created by Allard’s friend, Godfrey Imhof.
And the Allard cars were off! Sales were quick and demand was high!
Sales are going so well that Allard decided to add two more models to the lineup, the M and P.
A famous name in the automotive industry worked briefly at Allard in the early 1950s plus raced Allards for the factory team at Le Mans, Zora Arkus-Duntov. Zora is considered the father of the Corvette. He lead the Corvette from being an underpowered dud to the sports performance car it’s known for.
Zora was not the only famous name to drive or own an Allard, Carroll Shelby raced two J2s in the early 50s.
Allard J2 were driven by Zora and Shelby. Sydney Allard saw that the US was starved of sports cars and most manufacturers couldn’t produce quick enough for the demand and thus he created the J2.
The J2 was a powerful combination of lightness with power BUT it apparently had a tendency to catch fire at times when starting? The J2 could be race ready or outfitted with street trim and proved to be a winner, taking third overall at the 1950 Le Mans.
To follow up the success of the J2, Allard would release the J2X an improved version of the J2. Though the J2X would not prove as successful in racing as it’s predecessor.
Allard’s last attempt at Le Mans was with the JR, a lightweight racer powered by a Cadillac engine in which only seven cars were ever built.
While producing racecars, Allard was also creating saloons, two seater sports cars and even a microcar.
The Allard Clipper was an attempt to jump into the microcar market. It was a tiny fiber glass bodied car powered by a 346 cc Villier twin cylinder motorcycle engine.
The Allard K3, essentially a rebodied Palm Beach, was sent to the US in an attempt to be a “Corvette Slayer”. Powered by one of the most powerful engines of the time, the Chrysler Hemi engine and paired with of 4-barrel carbs. Dodge dealerships were eager to get it on their lots though the expected high sales did not follow.
Without continued advancement and research, Allard Motor Company would fail to keep up with the ever increasing cheaper and more technologically advanced competition.
And by the mid 50s, Allard was struggling, couple that with later recession of that decade and the company could not continue manufacturing cars. Though they would continue selling brake conversion sets and in 1961 release the Dragon, a dragster powered by a shorrock-supercharged 1.5liter Ford.
1966 Sydney Allard would die on the same night as a fire destroyed their Clapham factory and most all of the factory records.
Though that wouldn’t quite the end of the story, in 1999 the Allard name would be licensed by Chris Humberstone and an attempt as a proto-type racer powered by a 3.5 liter coswoth v8 coupled with grafted F1 car transmission would be made BUT Humberstone ran short of money.
Not thwarted, he attempted to finagle a deal with Toyota to rebadge the first gen Lexus LS400 as an Allard, and the deal was going along swimmingly until it didn’t and for reasons unknown the deal fizzled.
the brand was given new life in 2012, established as the Allard Sports Cars Limited and producing period correct continuation chassis of the JR.