Counterpoints, Part 2

In March of '51, the replies to Mr. Goldschmidts letter got a little more interesting. Click on the photo below to view the readable version. A few observations are at the end...

• The second letter by Mr. Holms: The race at Santa Ana was Roy Richters first and only sports car race...not a bad effort for a rookie. And the Pebble Beach race where the XK120's won the race...the J2 (owned by Al Moss) had its hood open at the start of the race while the fan belt was replaced. After being lapped, Michael Graham drove the J2 into 3rd place and would have won if there was another lap.
• The last letter by Mr. Clark: Richter's J2 was not supercharged. More importantly, Mr. Clark makes a few disparaging and unfounded remarks about Sydney's design. Yes, the J2 could be considered a fluke, but how many cars before and since have used power plants from other suppliers? And how many 'lesser minds' (like Jaguar) have used the de Dion suspension after Sydney reintroduced it to the world?

In the next post, we'll share an editorial by Mr. Boddy that attempts to objectively compare the racing success of the Allard vs the other builders such as Jaguar, Frazer-Nash, and Ferrari.

Counterpoints, Part 1

One can assume that Goldschmidt's letter resulted in more than a few Letters to the Editor at MotorSport. Here are two of the presumably many letters that they chose to publish in their February issue.

Fighting Words...

Back in January of 1951, MotorSport magazine (UK) published the letter below, written by noted Allard racer, Erwin Goldschmidt. As you can imagine, the letter proved to be quite controversial. We'll post some of the replies in the coming days.  

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!

1st Again!

That's a lot of silver...

The Wick brothers were longtime friends of Sydney Aallard and enjoyed much success in his cars. Over the years, Maurice (left) and Cyril (right) had owned several Allards including a pre-war special, a J1, two M's, and the J2 pictured above. Sadly, Maurice passed in 1981, but Cyril still leads a very active life. As you can see, the Wick brothers were very succesful in motorsports.

Shooting Brake

 

According to Wikipedia, the first "Shooting Brakes" were developed "in the early 19th century, a brake was a large carriage-frame with no body, used for breaking in young horses, to restrict (or "brake") their movement, and train them as work horses. By the late 19th century the term extended to an open-bodied wagonette designed to carry a number of people. A "shooting brake" carried a driver and gamekeeper facing forward and up to six sportsmen on longitudinal benches with their dogs, guns and game carried alongside in slat-sided racks.

The term was subsequently applied to custom built luxury estate cars altered for use by hunters and other sportsmen such as golfers, riders, and polo players requiring easy access to larger storage areas than offered by the typical automobile boot."

This Allard Shooting Brake was likely supplied as a chassis only to an independant body builder. If you know anything about this car, please contact us!

ALLARD & The 1953 Redex Reliability Trial

 

By Chris Lowth

That original 1953 Redex Reliability Trial remains as a watershed in endurance rallies in Australia, up to that time it was the second longest trial ever staged in the world (the previous longest had been from New York to Paris in 1908). It was an expedition into the unknown.

It was organized by Dunlop executive Harry James, who in 1904 had organized Australia's first motor race meeting, a four event "demonstration" at Aspendale racecourse in Victoria. James, who was generally regarded as the father of Australian motor sport, was also a great-uncle to arguably the biggest name to ever grace an Australian racetrack Peter Brock.

Click to read more ...

Allard K2 races on the sand @ 1953 Speed Week

Before the Daytona 500, Nascar hosted their Speed Week event in Spring on the sprawling sands of Daytona Beach. It's not known how many Allard's raced there, but in 1953 NASCAR had a sports car class. Robert "Bob" Hunt took his K2 there to compete and did quite well finishing second to probably the fastest sports at that time, a Jaguard XK-120C. Bob completed the standing mile with an average speed of 84.09 mph (the C-type was a hair quicker at 84.92!) and flying mile at 114.58 mph. The flying mile speed demonstrated superior aerdynamics [and gearing] of the C-type, which finished with an amazing average speed of 134.07 mph...besting Mr. Hunt by almost 30 mph (or 4 seconds)! Either way, the times and speeds posted by Mr. Hunt and his K2 were very impressive...although we must wonder what a Allard J2X-LM or JR could have done... Click here or the image above to view the full size image.

This scan came from the March 13, 1953 issue of Motor World magazine.

Tick Tock

One of our generous members sent us this amazing clock the other day for our archives. The free-standing clock is made from cast pewter and measures 8" wide X 5 1/4" tall and weighs several pounds. Little is known about the clocks except that they were made here in the US several years ago, with a limited run of 100...this is clock #14. The clock movement is nothing special, it's just a AA normal battery powered unit like you'd find in most wall clocks nowadays. If you know any more about these clocks, please let us know!