Ebay: Allard K3 6017

Allard K3 6017 popped up for sale on Ebay the other day. Click here to check out the listing. Good luck!

Report: Gathering the Clan, Texas 2011

-Words: Chuck Warnes         -Photos: Bob Weiner

Corinthian Vintage Auto Racing held their 20th Annual Vintage Fall Festival the weekend of November 4 – 6. Their gracious invitation to the Allard folks presented the second opportunity in the past eight years for us to enjoy their laid-back hospitality and company at the historic Texas World Speedway.

TWS is located just outside of the twin communities of Bryan/College Station TX, and dates back to its NASCAR origins of the ‘60’s. It began as a steeply banked two-mile oval, and over the years has evolved into a three-mile, fifteen-turn road course that continues to use about half of the original oval.

Click to read more ...

Allard Owners Club News!

Congrats to the AOC! They've just completely revamped their web site and it looks great. Go to http://www.allardownersclub.org/wordpress/ to check it out!

SCCA Archives From the Golden Age

If you're a sports car racing history buff, then you should check out www.sportscarscan.com. The team at Sports Car Scan has accomplished the monumental task of scanning the magazine “Sports Car” (SCCA publication). The magazines have been scanned in a high resolution (300 dpi), color PDF format that is completely searchable. Every issue has been scanned from 1944 through 1970 – the “Golden Age of Auto Racing”. Issues include national/local race reports, entry lists, race schedules, photos, ads and feature articles Everything is copied to a USB flashdrive (PC and Apple compatible) and organized by year and month. There is an exclusive licensing and distribution agreement in place with the Sports Car Club of America so there are no copyright violations. The complete set is available for $375.

Here are just a few of the Allard related scans.

Racing Movies!

Great video from Cliff Reuter at www.etceterini.com. The first 4 minutes or so come from the 1952 Giants Despair Hill Climb in Laurel Run, PA then comes footage from Grand Island and finally the 1953 Chahute AFB races. Lots of great Allard footage. Enjoy.

Mystery Car

We found this photo of Sydney racing at the Poole Speed Trials in 1947 where he took the fastest sports car time (Motor Sport, October '47). The number plate isn't shown in our chassis registry. Know anything about it? Leave a comment.

Cheers!

Update on Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 8:46PM by Colin

The Styer often receives most of the attention as Sydney's special, but he also built a special road-going car around the same time, JGP 473. According to the Lush book, the chassis was based on a J1 with much of the cross bracing and boxinig removed to save weight. The chassis was lowered using flattened springs (similar to the Steyr) and the 2-seat body was made of aluminum stretched over the chassis with no doors. Power for the car came from Sydney's previous special HLF 601 which featured a set of Allard OHV heads (pre-Ardun, but copied from an American design). The heads proved to be very troublesome and the car was later converted to a conventional Mercury V8, then supercharged. As page 88 reveals, JGP was the pre-cursor to the J2. I wonder what happened to it?

The first Palm Beach.

Click hereto read a great story on the first Palm Beach (by forgottenfiberglass.com) , which had a fiberglass (sorry, glassfibre) body made in the USA. I can imagine that Sydney Allard was very interested in fiberglass for car bodies. Hand made aluminum bodies (many with wood frames) must have caused numerous headaches in regards to quality, cost, and lead time. Sadly the project went nowhere, but Sydney continued to experiment with fiberglass up through the 60's.

Additionally, click here to read about the Palm Beach story in our archives.

This car, chassis 5000 still exists, but we've lost track of it. If you know anything about this cars whereabouts, please click here to let us know!

Tech Alert! DeDion Issue

After putting close to 3,000 miles on our Allard K3 since rebuilding it from a 'basket case', we experienced a frightening event. This past May on a trip to Paso Robles (120 miles from home) for a car show. A few weeks prior to that trip I had the car up on jack stands for its annual service and inspection. All bolts for the running gear and suspension were tight at that time as observed by the safety wires or, in some cases, cotter pins.

Click to read more ...

Back in the day...

Beautiful exhibit at the 5th annual Hot Rod and Motor Sports Show is the new ALLARD, owned by Reg Fudge, Jr., Los Angeles. Sports car will be equipped with 160HP Lincoln overhead valve V-8 engine. Waving from the car is 18-year-old model Earlyne Taylor, contendor for the title of Hot Rod Show queen.

Do you know what car this is?

1st Again!