About Allard
The Allard Motor Company was an English car manufacturer founded in 1936 by Sydney Allard. The company, based in Putney, London until 1945 and then in Clapham, London, produced approximately 1900 cars until its closure in 1966.
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.
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.
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.
