Adlards Motors Limited (Allard), 1943.
The following letter was issued by Adlards Motors Ltd, a Ford cars and parts emporium, in July 1943. It was addressed to a Mr N.L. Washburne Esq. of White Plains, New York, USA. How the letter ended up back in the UK, and hanging on the wall of a Herefordshire antiques centre in 2020 is anyone's guess. But happily it did, which is where I stumbled across it.
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Anyone who knows their Allard cars, will recognise the name of this garage, and the names of the directors listed at the top left of the page, especially S.H. Allard, or Sydney Allard, one-time trials driver, hillclimb driver, and founder of the Allard Motor Company, in 1945. This though pre-dates the formation of the Allard car company, yet relates to its earliest, experimental, products. The garage, as well as describing itself as being both AA and RAC appointed along its lower edge, also advises that it is the maker of Allard cars - this before the company proper had been founded.
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Who Mr Washburne was though I've not been able to establish, yet clearly he was interested in the first cars that Sydney Allard and co. had built. In the 1930s, Allard constructed a small number of trials cars and modified Fords, mostly powered by the "flat head" Ford V8 engine. By the outbreak of war, twelve cars had been built, but the foundation of the Allard car company proper would have to wait until hostilities had ended, which indeed happened, in 1946. Therefore this 1943 letter sits squarely between the build of a few hand-built trials cars in the 1930s, and cars recognised as being Allards entering proper production in the late 1940s.
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Mr Washburne was in need of an ALLARD SPECIAL radiator badge it seems, but for what car in particular isn't referred to, and Adlards Motors themselves seem a little curious by this request, given that they knew of none of their pre-war hand-built cars ever making it to the US by that point. They ask for the specific car's engine and chassis numbers, in order to check their records. I wonder if they ever received a reply to this letter? Did the letter in fact ever get posted back to the US? |
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Clearly, Adlards Motors didn't want one of their badges being affixed to a car not of their knowledge, and who can blame them. They were though willing to supply a button hole badge, if that's what was actually being requested (although it seems clear that a car badge was being asked for). Just as soon as they were back in stock, that is, assuming they ever were - given how few cars had actually been assembled by this point in time, would they really have such items of memorabilia already on stream? Alas, the catalogue that is also referred to is long gone. Or, perhaps, this American gent was looking to buy a badge to fit on a badge bar, rather than a manufacturer's badge that would have been installed directly to the car's radiator surround? Given the ready supply of V8 engines in the USA at the time, perhaps he was planning his own replica of an Allard, maybe after reading about Sydney Allard's competition outings before the war?
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The letter was issued from their workshops on Hugon Road in Fulham, although other branches were also in operation dotted around London. The company's war years were spent overhauling military vehicles, with a focus on Fords in particular, which came in particularly handy when it came to building up a stockpile of parts, that would become useful once production of roadgoing Allards commenced following WW2.
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Further Allard content on OCC.
Other unusual items relating to Allard that feature on Old Classic Car include the following. This page for example contains photographs of an experimental car with a full folding metal roof, possibly the Dolphin-Allard. Photos of a gent and his K2 can be found here.
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Return to the Motoring Collectables section, for lots more unique items of motoring memorabilia.
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