A Brief History

by John Allard

J2X 1951

“One can, if he’s so inclined, label the Allard the most consistently successful hot rod of all time.” (Road & Track)

The first car to be officially called an “Allard” was the result of a marriage of an English Ford V-8 Coupe and a Grand Prix Bugatti body. This fusion of components was purposely built to compete in that most English of all automobile competitions, The Trials.

For the uninitiated, an “Automobile Trials” would remind one of a Jeep Rodeo, complete with boulders, mud, and impossible gradients with the occasional stream fording thrown in for good measure. Into this morass the intrepid competitor would urge his mechanical steed, and follow a course that cunningly takes advantage of the surroundings worst features in a series of stages. The object of the course designer would be to try and strand the vehicle and driver. The winner of the competition would be the team that completed the most stages with the fewest penalties.

Freddy Wacker - Driving a J2

Prior to the arrival of the “Allard Special” these events were the playground of diminutive Singers and MGs many of them supercharged, their tiny engines screaming at high RPM through substantial gear reduction and skinny tires to navigate the bogs and mountains. Sydney Allard had been competing with a modified Ford, but its size and weight distribution were against it. So when a brand new Ford was totaled near his garage (Adlards Motors) in 1935, he bought it, dragged it into the shop. When it re-emerged, complete with the body off of a Bugatti racing car, the purists swooned. CLK 5 as the car became known (that was it’s English registration or “license number”) became an instant hit. It featured the tried and true Ford Flathead V8, essentially the same engine that Ford built in the US. Of huge displacement by English standards it only produced 85 horsepower in its stock configuration. But it did have torque in abundance. [...]

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