The Allard Motor Company was an English car manufacturer founded in 1936 by Sydney Allard. The company produced approximately 1900 cars until its closure in 1964. 1936 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1964 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ...

1948 Allard P1 Sports

Allards generally featured a large American V8 engine in a small, light British sports car body, giving a high power to weight ratio and foreshadowing the more famous AC Cobra - in fact, Carroll Shelby drove an Allard in the 1950s, and it was doubtless an inspiration. 1948 Allard P1 Saloon seen at the Great West Road Run rally at Aust Services, Aust, Bristol, England. ... 1948 Allard P1 Saloon seen at the Great West Road Run rally at Aust Services, Aust, Bristol, England. ... The Liberty V8 aircraft engine clearly shows the configuration :See also V8 (beverage) A V8 engine is a V engine with eight cylinders. ... 427 A/C Shelby America CSX 4109 Cobra Signature Series #3 of 4 The AC Cobra was a powerful Anglo-American sports car built in the 1960s. ... Carroll Hall Shelby, (born January 11, 1923 in Leesburg, Texas) is an American racing and automotive design legend. ...

Prewar Allard Specials

The first Allard cars were built specifically to compete in Trials events - timed events somewhat like rallies but through much worse terrain, almost impassable by wheeled vehicle. The first Allard mounted a Ford Flathead V8 in a body mostly sourced from a Bugatti racing car, and used the American engine's high torque to great effect in this slow-speed competition. A trial is, in the most general sense, a test, usually a test to see whether something does or does not meet a given standard. ... The concept of torque in physics, also called moment or couple, originated with the work of Archimedes on levers. ...

Further Allards were soon built, all specially ordered, and fitted with a variety of large, Ford-sourced engines, including Lincoln Zephyr V12 powerplants. By 1939 and the outbreak of war, twelve Allard Specials had been built, and Sydney Allard planned volume production, but the war forced a delay to those plans. Allard's company worked instead on Ford-based trucks during the war years, and when hostilities ceased, Allard had built up quite an inventory of Ford parts. Lincoln Zephyr Series HB 1937, USA The Lincoln Zephyr is a brand name of automobile from the Lincoln automobile division of the Ford Motor Company. ...

Postwar

Using these and bodywork of Allard's own design, three postwar models were introduced: the J, a competition sports car; the K, a slightly larger car intended for road use, and the L, with four seats. All used primarily Ford mechanicals, making them easy to maintain anywhere. Sales were fairly brisk for a low-volume car, and demand was high for cars in general; Allard introduced several larger models, the M and N.

Sydney Allard soon saw the potential of the US market, in much better shape financially and rather lacking in quality sports cars. A special model intended for the American market was soon produced, the J2, fitted with a new independent rear suspension. They were available with a huge choice of different American engines, including a new Cadillac V8, much more powerful than the Ford units used before. Importing American engines just to ship them back across the Atlantic proved troublesome, so soon US-bound Allards were shipped engineless and fitted out in the States. An Independent Suspension is an automobile suspension system that allows the wheels on an axle to move independent of each other. ...

They proved phenomenally successful, and the American mechanicals meant that unlike more exotic British sportscars, they were familiar beasts for mechanics to work on. They were used to great effect in competition on both sides of the Atlantic, including a third place at Le Mans in 1950 and first place in the Monte Carlo Rally in 1952. Le Mans is a city in France, located at the Sarthe River. ... The Monte Carlo Rally (officially Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo) is an automobile racing event organized each year by the Automobile Club de Monaco who also organize the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco and the Monaco Kart Cup. ...

Decline

Allard's R&D department, unfortunately, did not keep up its former pace, and soon other manufacturers were producing cheaper and more technically advanced cars. Allard scrambled to try and keep up, but its new Palm Beach smaller car was a year later than its competitors. Allard's new K-3 also did not live up to expectations, though it was a beautiful car, and their Safari Estate, a large Woody station wagon with eight seats, a huge V8 engine and beautiful bodywork, didn't seem to find a market. Woody is used: In botany to describe wood. ...

By the mid fifties Allard was struggling as a manufacturer. Its attempt to give Dodge dealers a Corvette competitor using a rebodied Palm Beach with a Dodge Hemi engine were hit by the recession in the US economy in the late Fifties, and Allard produced few cars after 1959, and those only to special order.

Sixties Allards were performance modified British Fords, rather than wholly Allard bodywork, and everything ended in 1966 when Sydney Allard died; on the same night, a fire destroyed the factory and most Allard company records.

External links

• Allard history (http://www.ptinet.net/~jallard/allard1.html)
• Modern Allard J2X recreation (http://www.allardj2x.com/)