Vintage Thing No.98 - Allard dragster

There's something mighty fine about early drag racer paint jobs

While I prefer Vintage Things that go around corners, there's always something impressive about sheer acceleration.

I've recently been in touch with Martin Gleadow who noticed an Allard theme on this blog and and 2012 marks the 60th anniversary of Sydney Allard winning the Monte Carlo Rally in a car he designed and built himself, a feat that is unlikely to be repeated. Martin pointed out that a successful campaign has achieved funding for the restoration of Sydney Allard's dragster as a running exhibit.

Coincidentally, I clocked this car at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, last autumn. It's of immense significance because it is the first ever European dragster.

Sydney Allard had always enjoyed motorsport ranging from trials to sprints to hillclimbs to rallies and another form of competition that majored on acceleration inevitably attracted him.

It needs to go, though

He built this dragster in 1961 and had to order the highly modified, blown Chrysler hemi engine from specialists in the states. The frame was made here in Blighty, though, out of small diameter tubing while the wheels and tyres were agina sourced from across the pond.

It was initially demonstrated at Silverstone on Monday, 24th July and made a helluvan impression on the British public with its unsilenced 400bhp engine and smoking tyres.  On that occasion it clocked a standing quarter mile at 9.5 seconds with a terminal speed of 150 mph.

After almost setting fire to some hay bales with the flames from its exhausts, Sydney used the dragster in some duels with visiting Americans, namely Dante Duce and Mickey Thompson and the resulting interest saw the formation of the British Drag racing Association, with Sydney as president.

Following this enterprise, Sydney marketed the Allard Dragon (drag-on, geddit?) dragster kits that were designed to use British four cylinder Ford engines packing superchargers.

Sydney liked V8s but if one wasn't available a blower was the answer. Obviously, blown V8s were the answer to a question most of us were too afraid to have asked.

By 1964, there were sufficient competitors to hold a Drag Festival at Blackbushe but Sydney was not long for this world and died in 1966 following an illness, ironically just after a fire at the Allard garages in Clapham High Street destroyed the works records and stores of spares.

The Allard Chysler dragster last ran in 1964.

The first ever dragster built here in Yerp

It was subsequently owned by Brian Golder, a great Allard enthusiast, who bequested it to the National Motor Museum on his death in 1992. It's been on show there as a static exhibit ever since and is in remarkably original condition except that the powerplant has long since been removed.

However, the Allard Chrysler Action Group is determined to get it going again. In 2009, they secured funding from insurance specialists Performance Direct to make it run again following a short presentation at the National Motor Museum. And it obviously has to run again with the right sort of engine so the plan is to re-creat the 400 horses 5.4 litre Chyrsler hemi that this device obviously deserves so that scenes like this can be re-created..