Sydney Allard was somewhat unusual. His great passion was motorsport, which was not an unusual trait for a young man at the time. But in 1929, aged just 19, he bought a Morgan Threewheeler and raced it to his first victory at Brooklands. However, this was far from enough for the young man and he got rid of the biggest disadvantage of his Morgan with a radical solution: he converted the three-wheeler from Malvern Link, which was classified as a sidecar, to four wheels. Thanks to the family business, a Ford garage, Allard soon had the idea of replacing the original V-twin with a Ford V-8 engine. Allard won his class at the Brighton Speed Trials with it. In 1938, Sydney Allard contested the very first Prescott Hill Climb in his Allard Special with a Lincoln V12 engine and won the sports car class of this race, which had long since become a traditional event, organized and driven on the grounds of the British Bugatti Owners Club.
From 1937 until the outbreak of the Second World War, Allard built a total of 12 cars, some of them for his own use and also for customers willing to pay. He preferred to use the V8 from Ford or the V12 from Ford's Lincoln luxury division. The sale of these provided the pilot and designer Allard with the small change he needed to finance his motorsport activities.
Having made money during the war with maintenance work on army vehicles, Sydney Allard founded his automobile construction company, the Allard Motor Company, in south-west London in February 1945. The first car from this period was powered by a remarkable engine, presumably from war booty. The 3.5-liter V8 with air cooling came from a Steyr 1500A armored personnel carrier of the German Wehrmacht and produced 85 hp. Allard won the British Hill Climb Championship with it in 1949 - not to be misunderstood as a "mountain championship" in German, given the topographical conditions on the island.
Variety of types
The first production Allard is considered to be the Type M. The Allard J, on the other hand, was a racing sports car based on a lightweight chassis of its own design and Ford suspension and drive components. It could also be optionally equipped with a Cadillac engine or any other power unit.
With the type designation K, a sporty roadster appeared that was equipped with the elementary comfort features of a touring car, while the P came along as a more than unusual "coach", i.e. a four-window, closed two-door car of the most remarkable design. But Allard had even tried his hand at a Woody station wagon.
Around 17 different models and model generations can be identified for Allard's active period between 1945 and around 1958/59. With only around 1900 vehicles in total, this is a remarkably confusing variety. And this does not include the engine variants, the choice of which was partly left to the customer. This applies in particular to Allards that were delivered to the USA. As they were destined for export, they were not even fitted with an engine, but rather the engine was specified and assembled on site according to the customer's wishes. Most of them were to be used for racing anyway, which is why the future owners knew exactly what they needed.
In 1952, Sydney Allard won the Monte Carlo Rally in an Allard P1. This was powered by a 4.3-liter flathead engine from a Mercury. Never before and never since has a constructor won this rally at the wheel of his own car. And sporting successes like this also generated additional interest in the USA, albeit only among a very specific, small circle of proven motorsport enthusiasts.
In Switzerland, Alfred Godfrey Imhof, Allard's coachbuilder, had already caused a sensation at the Maloja mountain race in 1946 and at Rheineck-Walzenhausen in 1948. Sidney's brother Lesley was also there. And for a short time, the enterprising Bernhard Blank, who also sold the very first Porsche, took over the import of the Allards to Switzerland.
Sydney Allard's designs were also convincing on the circuit. With the J2, Allard brought a high-performance racing sports car to the starting line. In 1950, as the designer himself in the cockpit, he finished third in the 24 Hours of Le Mans together with American co-driver Tom Cole Jr., a very respectable achievement for the small manufacturer. Allard had to drive everything in fourth gear for the last four hours, for which the ample torque of the Cadillac 5.4-liter V8 he used certainly served him well. Allard led the opening lap ahead of Alberto Ascari's Ferrari and the Jaguar C-Type with Stirling Moss, which certainly had a positive effect on the media coverage and publicity.
An example from Europe
In Europe, the American Caroll Shelby also became acquainted with the fast Allards, as did Zoran Arkus-Duntov, who later became responsible for the Corvette. Both were convinced by Allard's relatively simple formula: a large, powerful and reliable engine of American origin, combined with a delicate chassis and the skillful tuning and technical effort of a European sports car. Both Shelby and Arkus-Duntov, who even spent some time with Sidney Allard and his factory, were thus significantly influenced by the unorthodox Briton and later helped shape the world of racing and sports cars from the USA. Duntov helped to relaunch the initially unsuccessful Corvette by using the Chevy small block, while Shelby sought out a lightweight, European sports car chassis in the early 1960s, which he combined with the 4.7-liter Ford V8 - the Shelby AC Cobra.
But still outdated
However, even in the British automotive industry, despite some special features, there seemed to be less and less room for a manufacturer like Allard as the 1950s progressed. In order to broaden its base and to be more in line with the dimensions of the home market, Sydney Allard therefore presented the Allard 21 Palm Beach at the end of 1952, a small roadster that was probably better suited to leisurely cruising than wild racing.
Once again, the engines came from Ford, with a choice of the 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine from the Ford Consul with 48 hp for the 21 C or the 2.3-liter six-cylinder engine from the Ford Zephyr in the 21 Z, which produced around 69 hp.
One can assume that the larger six-cylinder engine in particular weighed somewhat heavily on the front axle of the lightweight roadster. Only 80 units of the Palm Beach were built between 1953 and the end of production in 1958, other sources speak of 1959. The Automobil Revue even reported in 1955 that production of the Palm Beach had been discontinued. Presumably, however, there was a short phase until the Series II was ready.
From 1956, this revised version was only available with a six-cylinder engine from the Zephyr or even with the extremely powerful Jaguar XK engine and 3.4 liter displacement - but only in extremely modest quantities in view of the exorbitant price. Instead of the Allard-typical front swing axle with thrust links and coil springs, the Palm Beach Mark II now also used a double wishbone axle with torsion springs. However, the rear rigid axle was still guided by upper and lower trailing arms and a Panhard rod and supported by coil springs.
The company was initially to be liquidated in 1957 and automobile production probably came to an end in 1958, even if the company was still listed as an automobile manufacturer until 1961, for example in the Automobil Revue catalog of the same year. But Sydney Allard continued at the previous location with a new idea.
Even dragsters
The next big thing for the enterprising maker was dragsters, which he was the first to present in the United Kingdom. In 1961, he appeared at various motorsport events with a drag racer powered by a Chrysler Hemi engine, which is said to have produced well over 400 hp thanks to supercharging. This brought us full circle, as the man who once introduced the Americans - and Europeans! - the idea of a lightweight sports car with a large American V8, was now adapting an original American automobile culture on this side of the Atlantic. Sydney Allard founded the British Drag Racing Association in 1964, the first such association outside the USA.
Allard also imported Shorrok superchargers, now with the help of his son, and installed them on small cars such as the Ford Anglia in his garage on Clapham High Street.
The other Allard
But back to the Palm Beach: shown for the first time in autumn 1952, the small Palm Beach brought the brand closer to the competition of the well-known British sports cars from MG or Morgan, and soon afterwards also Triumph or Austin Healey. The Allard with the four-cylinder engine was to cost 886 pounds sterling, which hardly gave it a chance in direct comparison with the aforementioned cars. In Switzerland, the price was estimated at around 16,000 francs - at the time, this was in the region of a Porsche 356.
One tester, Robert Braunschweig, the editor-in-chief of Automobil Revue, invited by a good friend and his correspondent on the island, Gordon Wilkins, returned from this car with rather mixed feelings. He wrote the following about a short test drive in 1952, on the occasion of an overall exhibition of the British automobile industry for the international press at the Earls Court Motor Show on the Goodwood circuit: "The sports car, which weighs only about 900 kilos, is a lively and agile jack-of-all-trades which, in view of the by no means poussed engine (frisiert, literally from pousser > to push, thrust, editor's note), shows no mechanical naughtiness either. It lies flat on the road, shows no vices when driving fast and pleases the driver with its quick acceleration. However, the three-speed gearbox is not particularly suited to the characteristics of the Palm Beach because of the second gear, which does not allow a really high maximum speed."
Back from New Zealand
Well, the Allard Palm Beach, which will be offered in the Bonhams auction on April 19, 2026, from 11 a.m. on the occasion of the Goodwood Mebers' Meeting, has long since had its problematic gearbox replaced. After some research, the chassis number 21Z-5125 reveals that the car was built in 1954 for the New Zealand market and equipped with a 6-cylinder Ford Zephyr engine and a 3-speed gearbox.
After a restoration in New Zealand, the little Allard returned to the UK in 2010, where further extensive work was carried out. A new, modified engine - its three SU carburetors with corresponding intake manifold are an eye-catching feature in the engine compartment - and a 5-speed Ford 9 transmission were installed. The interior was also professionally restored and - presumably not entirely original - upgraded and fitted with seats with built-in headrests. Given the rarity of the vehicle, such modifications must be accepted.
These modifications, let's call them improvements, are probably partly responsible for the fact that the car is in a ready-to-drive and easy-to-handle condition today. However, the purist will want to tweak it here and there. Given the purely hand-built nature of the car, there is certainly some scope for this and it will certainly be difficult to judge with definitive certainty exactly how the car left the small factory in Clapham, south-west London, at the time. The garage in Clapham burned down on the exact night of April 12, 1966, when Sydney Allard passed away. As a result, not only were many of the founder's memories lost, but also numerous documents and plans.
Anyone interested in the various other models, histories and backgrounds of the brand can find comprehensive information - in English - on the Allard Register website.
