Allard Motor Works cars for sale
About these listings
Every Allard Motor Works listed on MotorLoop.
Overview
Allard built roughly 1,900 cars in south London between 1945 and 1958 on a formula the AC Cobra would make famous a decade later: the lightest British body the workshop could make, wrapped around the largest American V8 available. The J2 and J2X were the competition cars, and they were sold deliberately incomplete — chassis and body shipped to the United States, where the buyer fitted a Cadillac 331 or a Chrysler FirePower Hemi.
The name on this listing matters. Allard Motor Works is the modern operation that builds continuation J2X cars; the original firm was the Allard Motor Company. A car badged Allard is therefore either a genuine 1940s or 1950s survivor or a much later continuation, and the two are separated by an enormous gap in value. Establish which you are looking at before anything else.
History
Sydney Allard founded the company in London and aimed it squarely at the American sports-car market — one of the first British makers to do so after the war. The J2X arrived in late 1951, the X standing for extended: revised front suspension to calm the handling, and the engine moved forward to free about five inches of legroom in a cockpit that badly needed it.
The competition record is the reason the cars are remembered. From 313 starts in major races the J2 took 40 wins, 32 second places and 30 thirds — a return that helped establish the lightweight-chassis, big-American-V8 idea later carried by the Sunbeam Tiger and the AC Cobra.
Buying an Allard
Provenance is the whole purchase. Original Allards are individually documented cars with known chassis numbers and known histories, and almost none were delivered with an engine, so the powertrain in the car today is part of its story rather than a defect. Ask for the chassis number and check it against the marque registers before you talk price.
A continuation or replica is a legitimate thing to buy and drive — it is simply a different purchase. In Australia a car built or substantially reconstructed here is registered under your state or territory’s individually constructed vehicle scheme, so ask to see the engineering approval and compliance paperwork that goes with it.