Old Magazine Covers, Part 12

Today's cover is from the August, 1938 issue of Motor Sport...and it's probably the oldest magazine featuring an Allard on the cover. The cover caption reads, “The 3-hour sports car race…K. Hutchinson (Allard Special) takes the last curve leading to the finishing straight on the Campbell Circuit.” The Campbell Circuit at Brooklands was first raced in 1937, but the land was soon pressed into war service in 1939. The Lincoln V-12 powered ELX 50 was built for Ken Hutchinson. According to Tom Lush’s book, Hutchinson and Sydney co-drove the car ran “faultlessly” except for a broken fan belt that was fixed within five minutes. The team finished 9^th overall, completing 74 laps at an average speed of 56.5 mph. Not bad for the Allards first real road race.

Special thanks to Kerry Horan for sharing this with us.

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?

For Sale - Allard L-390 Special

Click here or the photo above to view the extensive photo gallery

Allard JLY 162 (Chassis# L-390) was born in London on February 13, 1948 and delivered unfinished from the factory to Allard agent, Dagenham Motors. The new owner, Mr. Bentley had the car painted black. Early Allards were often shipped unfinished in and effort to bypass the tax man while also allowing the new owner to add their personal touches. L-390 started life as a RHD 4-seat tourer with a 2622cc Pilot Ford Flathead (21 stud) engine.

After a few years of hill climb and trials racing (and an accident in 1955), the car was redone as a 2-seat competition car by a London panel beater named Watson. Allards were modified quite often in an effort to harness the brute torque of the V8; every ounce of extra bodywork was removed from L-390.

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What the!?

Our friend Ralph from www.psychoontyres.blogspot.com sent us these photos the other day of this amazing Allard J2 styled track day special. The photos were taken at a Mallory Park test day this past week. Unfortunately Ralph wasn't able to speak to the owner so we don't know if the car started life as an Allard or if the owner just wanted something different. Either way, we like it and we bet Sydney would have loved it! The car features a big-block Chevy engine, tube frame chassis, and doubel A-arm front suspension. Ralph said tells us the car is fast and the engine sounds like heaven.

If you know anything about this car, please contact us!

Update on Friday, August 19, 2011 at 10:17PM by Colin

From Mike Knapman...

"It is based on a Kougar chassis. Fitted with a dynoed 600 hp 427 Chevy engine for Sports Racing and GT class races. Geared for 160 mph.
The owner visited our (AOC) stand at Silverstone in 2010 and was so impressed by the J2 he saw on display he decided that was the style he wanted his bodywork to be.  He oviously went away and made it."

To learn more about Kougar's, click here to visit their web site:

For Sale: P1 Special

This particular Allard is a hybrid. The original car was a P1 saloon, 4-seater (Chassis P 2240). The chassis was altered to the same dimensions as the J2. A small block Chevy 283ci, 4700cc was fitted, with a Mark 10 Jaguar independent back end which has a limited slip differential. It has GM inboard disc brakes. Aluminum body.

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