Sidney H. Allard By: John E. Aibel

Sidney H. Allard

Sidney H. Allard was a real car guy who just happened to be English. In school he would read the latest "Motor" magazine or a motorcycle mag hidden behind his text books. It would appear to his teacher that he was reading his studies. I remember "Hop-Up" magazine in the States that was purposely made small enough to enable car guys to do the same trick. I, of course, never did such a thing!

Mr. Allard bought a Morgan three wheeler and could not leave well enough alone, so he added a fourth wheel to the car to improve its handling. He drove the Morgan at the famous Brooklyns race track with some success.

After school, Allard's father purchased a Ford dealership for his son. Operating the dealership was not enough of a challenge for Sidney so he bought a 1933 Ford coupe that Ford had entered and raced at the "Tourist Trophy" event. He drove it in competition, and soon had removed the Ford body and installed a Bugatti body on the Ford chassis. Known as CLK-5, this car turned out to be a really successful "Trails Car".

Allard had many requests from friends wanting to buy winning trails cars. This led to Allard building 11 Allard Specials before World War II. Two of the cars were fitted with Lincoln Zephyr V-12 engines and were used as sports cars.

John Aibel in his
pre-war Allard AM-8

One of the cars Sidney built for his father. It was registered as EXO-455 and carried a coach built body that had the look of a Jaguar SS-100. It was beautiful. It utilized the Ford V-8 as did all of the pre-war cars except for the two aforementioned V-12 cars.

It was Allard's father's car that turned up for sale in the Hemmings Motor News one fateful day. Being a devoted fan of all things Allard, and having just sold a lot of silver coin - thank you Hunt Brothers - I was able to buy this beauty.

I owned AM-8 for many happy years. I raced it a lot in VSCCA competition with fair amounts of success.

John Aibel racing hard at Lime Rock Park
in the AM-8 in the
Pre-War Category

It was completely reliable and fast. But it was not a J-2 or J-2X. I eventually sold it to a good friend of mine, and then it was resold and went back to England where it remains to this day.