BBC4 10PM The Golden age of the British sports car

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The silver age

I missed the programme so will catch up on i-player, but here is my English sports car from the silver age - back from a full engine replacement and gearbox re-build, a 1949 Allard M1 drophead.

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Now equipped with a teeny weeny 4.2 Mercury 8BA flathead V8 and twin Strombergs. 220lbs ft of torque is not bad for a 1949 beastie!
 
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...here is my English sports car from the silver age - back from a full engine replacement and gearbox re-build, a 1949 Allard M1 drophead.

Now equipped with a teeny weeny 4.2 Mercury 8BA flathead V8 and twin Strombergs. 220lbs ft of torque is not bad for a 1949 beastie!

That's fabulous Charles- never seen one before. What was the original power plant?
 
It was a flathead V8, Paul, but an early 21 stud 3.6 Ford Pilot one. Alas it was pretty well knackered, and there are few easily available upgrades such as Edelbrock heads and twin carb intake manifolds, as the hot rodders used the later 24 stud engines. With a single carb it was always struggling in motorway traffic, so we replaced it with a French army Mercury V8.
 
Well, with that BBC4 doc and now Charles and his flying machine, I'm having fun discovering a huge gap in my knowledge of motoring history.

I rarely have patience for TV these days, and even most of the stuff I record I don't bother watching all the way through, so it was a nice surprise to find myself enjoying that doc to the end (although no doubt it was selective and a little too flippant at times). Had to laugh at the various references to some of those cars being described as affordable or even cheap- don't recall seeing any of them round my way when I was a nipper.
 
The golden age of the tweed sports jacket and patterned knitwear too by the looks of it. Prior to the sixties everyone looks old before their time, two seater notwithstanding, after, a bit too much the opposite (the seventies I exclude, being an era that fashion didn't just forget, it almost drowned in the pure waters of Lethe).
 
Don't mind the chill as long as it is dry and not icy. The V8 is a wonderful heater (Henry Ford insisted the exhaust go through the block to warm it rapidly in North American winters), although with new radiator core and water pumps (plus a reinstated engine fan) I hope over-heating is a thing of the past!
 
Very very nice Allard there! Don't see too many of them, even at shows these days. Was it the later models that featured the Cadillac V8 unit?
 
The numbers are right down. Mine was restored in the early 90s at the height of the classic car boom (which ended half way through, leaving the restorer with a large problem!). Out of some 400 M1 dropheads (the largest production car) made, only about 25 are known to survive. The J class are more prevalent, despite being made in much smaller numbers, but mostly because they were shipped primarily to the US.

Early Allards used the Ford Pilot V8 21 stud engine (actually a truck engine as it had 12v output rather than 6v for the cars), as they were available from Ford UK - importing engines at the height of exchange controls was pretty much impossible. Later cars such as the famous J2 and J2X were shipped direct to the US without engines, where the customer would have his own engine fitted. So you had Cadillac, Chevrolet and Ardun OHV conversions of the flathead fitted there. They were often re-engined as well later.

Which leads me to the sermon - Sydney Allard was the pioneer of the large V8 in light sports car build. The J2s dominated US car racing in the early 50s, and a certain Carroll Shelby won two seasons driving a Cadillac engined Allard J2. It was this that gave him the inspiration for the AC Cobra. Apart from being the father of the large V8 engined sports car, Sydney Allard also introduced drag racing to the UK and the club are currently documenting the re-build of the original Allard dragster.

(Pics of a replica J2 I snapped at the garage doing my restoration).

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Many thanks Charles for sharing your knowledge. The Allard is stunning.

I wonder what model the Green Cadillac is ?
 
The Allard's looking grand Charles. Did you get them to fit some brakes while it was in this time as well? :D

Cheers,

Gaz
 
I don't know what it is but it's not a Cadillac.

Indeed, I suspect a Mercury Grand Marquis. Research indicates a '74 vintage or thereabouts.

Cheers,

Gaz
 
Did you get them to fit some brakes while it was in this time as well? :D

Cheers,

Gaz

Ho ho ho, as Father Christmas replied when asked what he'd like for Christmas.

The first car Sydney Allard put a Ford V8 into was a Bugatti - much more torquey, reliable and powerful, so the first thing he did when manufacturing his cars was fit hydraulic brakes, unlike Bugatti, he built his cars to stop as well as to go!
 

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