Marques and Models
A whirlwind tour through the history of Sydney Allard and his Allard cars.
Following the Driver Diaries featuring my Allard cars, the editor has asked me to explain about the range of cars that Sydney Allard’s south London company made. It’s difficult in four pages to fit everything in on a company that made just over 1900 cars, but here goes!
Sydney Herbert Allard was born on 19th June 1910 in Streatham. His father Arthur Allard was a successful building contractor in west London, and built some of the earliest known flats in the area. Sydney was a tall, very fit lad with immense strength that later held him in good stead at the wheel of his cars, particularly in 1952 when he drove virtually nonstop to win the Monte Carlo Rally. He was educated at Ardingly School in Sussex, and later studied engineering in the evenings at Battersea Polytechnic. He excelled in mathematics, and passed the exams for membership to the Institute of Automobile Engineers.
Sydney was a motorcyclist initially, starting with a FrancesBarnett at a very early age. He ended up with a Morgan V-twin though, called Milly the Moocher, with which he won novice awards at Brooklands. This, some say, could be classed as his first Allard Special, as he experimented by making it a four-wheeler at one time (an unsuccessful experiment, it has to be said).
On 5th April 1930, his father helped him buy a small garage at Keswick Road in Putney, which was set up as a limited company – Adlards Motors.
Reg Canham joined Sydney in 1934 and was instrumental in obtaining a dealership from Ford – Reg worked mostly on the sales side of the business in the early days.
CLK 5 is generally classed as the first Allard Special, and was one of 12 built before the war. It was constructed from what was left of an accident damaged 1934 Ford Model 40 V8. This car is famous for carrying the bodywork from the ex- Lord Howe Bugatti Type 35 GP car, and was set up as a trials machine, at which it proved very successful. On most occasions Sydney’s wife Eleanor was his passenger, and she was to compete after WW2 in the Monte Carlo herself with a team of ladies. She also held various records at Brighton and at the famous UK hillclimbs in Allard products. CLK 5 looked very stylish when it was seen at the 1936 Coventry Cup Trial, and when Sydney was asked to build
more examples, they kept a similar appearance.
Ken Hutchinson suggested that Sydney should fit a Lincoln Continental V12 4.4-litre side-valve engine in his Allard Special, thus ELX 50 – called Tailwagger 1 – came into being. It was one of two that Allard built before WW2, the rest of the cars produced having the flathead V8. The V12 was offered as a twoseater at £560, a competition two-seater at £570 and as a four-seat tourer at £595, while the V8 cost £460, £480 and £495 respectively.
The V12 was eventually capable of 108mph (the V8 could manage 95mph) and was not only a successful trials car, but also raced at Brooklands and even, on 16th July 1938, led a three-hour Light Car Club sports car race on the Campbell circuit, driven by Hutchinson and Allard. Sadly it only finished 9th after cooling problems, its water pumps not being able to keep up.
The last of these pre-war cars was V12 FLX 650, which looked more like a fast and stylish road car with flowing front wings, but still did well on rallies, trials and circuit events in 1939. Even Motor Sport’s editor Bill Boddy accompanied the owner on a road test in the car – Boddy was a good friend of Sydney Allard, and jointly created with him the 1938 Ford Enthusiasts Club. We are lucky that a few of these pre-war cars have survived.
During WW2, with the help of the Ministry of Labour, Allard set up at Hugon Road in Fulham with a reconditioning factory for British military vehicles. These initially included Bedford, Crossley, Thornycroft,
Humber and Hillman, before concentrating on the full military range of Fords, particularly after Dunkirk in 1940. Sydney’s brother Leslie was very involved in this side of the business at the time. However, Sydney was starting to think of a production sports car by the end of 1944, using Ford components of course, but WW2 was still going on and raw materials proved to be a problem for the prospective fledgling manufacturer.
On 14th February 1945, The Allard Motor Co Ltd came into being. Reg Canham was heavily involved of course, along with Harold Biggs and Len Hill, but the famous lightweight aluminium body style is thought to have been inspired by AG (Goff) Imhof, who was very successful in Allards and won the 1952 RAC Rally in his J2X.
The press were all over Allard after the company’s announcement of their new range in early 1946. This consisted of the K Model 2-seater sports with a 106in wheelbase, L Model sports 4-seater (112in wheelbase), M Model two- door drophead coupé (again a 112in wheelbase), plus the J1 sports racer of which 12 were to be made. All these cars were to feature the tried and tested Ford V8, 3622cc, 85hp flathead with Solex carburettor,
Allard’s own design of radiator, and the so-so three-speed Ford transmission with remote lever which was later replaced by the dreaded-but-fashionable column change. The transmission was connected to the Ford torque tube and a suitably modified Ford lowgeared rear axle, which gave the cars stunning acceleration for the time.
The engine was fitted well back in the Allard- designed frame, made for them by
Thompsons of Wolverhampton. Steering was by Marles, and the full hydraulic single leading shoe Phase One brakes were by Lockheed (and similar to Humber on the back end). Later on, the P1 Phase Two brakes came along with twin leading shoes. The swinging leaf front axle suspension was by L M Ballamy Ltd, with Girling dampers – something of an Allard speciality – with a linked transverse rear spring, which he kept far too long really.
While this was all going on, Sydney decided not to renew the lease on the Hugon Road premises, which he said were too big. How wrong he was! But he moved back across the river to smaller premises in Park Hill in Clapham Common, not far from the Adlards Ford dealership in Acre Lane. Owing to a shortage of materials, the first of the new production sports cars was only finally completed on 25th July 1946, the white/cream coloured J1 HLP 5. It was to take part with two other Allards – the red L HLB 424 and a pre-war example – in the 500 vehicle SMMT London Cavalcade on 27th July. The parade was watched by the royal family and 250,000 other people, to be followed by various other SMMT cavalcades in London and around the country.
Needless to say, that very first car overheated straight away! Yet HLP 5 would travel around mainland Europe on a 5000 mile tour straight after the London Cavalcade with