Allure of the Allard

a 1956 Beetle, then owning a succession of Porsches, being drawn by the engineering and Ferdinand Porsche’s engineering history. He got involved with drag racing, and Western Springs Speedway.

Being a petrolhead is, “My curse. My wife has fits at times,” he says, and “She’s jealous of the Allard”. As you would be. It’s gorgeous.

Initially he was looking for a project to distract his teenager from gaming. YOU CAN TAKE THE BOY OUT OF WEST AUCKLAND, BUT YOU CAN’T TAKE WEST AUCKLAND OUT OF THE BOY. Around 560 P1s were built, of which fewer than 50 are thought to survive.

“And see if I can get him bitten by the bug.” He was trawling TradeMe looking for TVRs, when he saw a nice 1962 Griffith.

“I was marvelling at the work that went into it, and saw a guard in the photo I couldn’t recognise. So I asked what it was. It was an Allard . . . ”

Long story short, the widow of this car’s owner was considering a sale, though it took eight months of negotiating, through an intermediary, before the deal was done.

Andrew “liked that it was different, it was unique,” and he liked the big 3.9- litre Ford flathead V8 that powers it. “You can take the boy out of West Auckland, but you can’t take West Auckland out of the boy.”

Then he started doing some research. “I spoke with Sydney Allard’s son, and found the Allard guys in the UK, the US and Australia were a power of help.”

This was the first Allard new to