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The revival of the thread about the Cheetah prompted this post.
In the below link the first picture that comes up is a dark green Allard that a man in Sedona, AZ. owns. In fact that pictures is taken from his home in Sedona. It was the first of the new Allards produced. A good friend of mine has done a lot of work on this car over the last several years. The owner once owned an original 427 AC Bristol Cobra and wanted this car to be as fast. First they put nitrous on it. That was a hassle with the bottle. So he then put a turbo on it which he had to fabricate many of the parts for. I rode in the car. He hit it in 2nd gear at about 30 mph and it was all he could do to keep it from turning around. The fastest street car I have ever been in and I had a 10 second Hemi Coronet!! There is no way you could ever dump the clutch in first without completely destroying the wire wheels on the car. The guy that owns it is now scared of it.
I wonder about the scale of the replica - seems sort of larger than my impression of original Allards. But can't recall if I ever saw an original in person. Looks cool though.
I had experience with an Allard J2, The Allard ran in the Lemans, not sure what year. My friends father bought the Lemans car and restored it completely. He entered it in several major shows back in the late 70's and won 1st place each time. Ralph Grebe was his name. His J2 ran a Caddy 331 with 2 4barrel carbs on a high rise. I think it had a 3 speed manual trans. It was an amazing restoration, Ralph had great skills but unfortunately he is no longer with us. A man of no relation but named Allard purchased this car, he traded 50 acres of Waterfront on the American River for it. Today that would be millions.
My buddy, Ralphs son was allowed to drive this car and shared that a big block Vette came up to him on the freeway and wanted to race, they punched off, he let the Vette get ahead and then downshifted to 2nd and the car started fishtailing on the freeway, he said he caught the Vette at around 120 mph and made a point of shifting into 3rd as he pulled away.
At the Monterrey Car show Phil Hill came up to this car and told Ralph to hold it under 170 MPH because it would float all over the road above 170.
Ralph was a self trained metal worker with talent off the charts and a really nice man I will always miss. Thanks for bringing back the J2 memories.
I decided to google this and see if my 40 year old memories were correct. I could not find the Phil Hill reference but this quote including a reference I did not know about Zora being involved.
"Although the racing budget was limited, the works entered two Cadillac powered ‘JR’ models in the 1953 LeMans. This campaign was pitifully under financed and plagued with problems from the onset. One car’s engine was ruined in practice, and with no spares available, it had the makings of a single entry endeavor. This crisis, however, was resolved by the overnight delivery of a new engine via a US Air Force transport that just happened to be making a run from Michigan to a nearby air base in France.
So the race began with one car driven by Mr. Allard, and the second by Zora Arkus-Duntov of subsequent Corvette fame who was then an Allard works employee. Honors for leading the first lap went to none other than Sydney himself, but that glory was short lived. His car was forced to retire two laps later. The second car continued another six hours before a seized engine ended its day."
Last edited by Westlotorn; 02-21-2018 at 12:30 PM.
2020 Corvette of the Year Finalist (appearance mods)
C1 of Year Finalist (appearance mods) 2019
Originally Posted by DansYellow66
I wonder about the scale of the replica - seems sort of larger than my impression of original Allards. But can't recall if I ever saw an original in person. Looks cool though.
Original was 100 inches and the new one is the same as a new Corvette.....105 inches. I thought it looks longer too. Very cool car.
This is so far in the recesses of my old brain that I cannot "find" the "link" (my brain is not a hard drive) but sometime long, long ago I remember reading the story about the USAF and Curtis LeMay's involvement in bring that replacement engine over. It's the first thing I thought of when the story about the LeMans Allards was brought up. Sorry, but I don't recall where I read it.
I was thinking they could not have been that fast in 1952 with a 331 and 160 HP on tap in the 2,600 pound car. Then I read the race versions were converted to 390 Cubic Inches and estimated 300-400 HP. That would give them some real power, maybe the best available in 1952 for power to weight ratio.
02-20-2018, 06:13 PM
New Allard
