Of all the cool old drag cars around the world, there is only one that can be officially pin pointed as being the singular vehicle that launched the sport of drag racing in an entire country. That vehicle is Sydney Allard’s dragster that was built to both compete in British “sprint” events in the early 1960s and to stand toe to toe with dragsters of the era. Unlike the wide open rules of American drag racing in the early 1960s, there were some very tight restrictions over the British “sprinting” scene. One of the rules was that all mechanical parts had to be enclosed by a body. That rule caused Allard to used a Moon crank mounted blower as opposed to the more traditional top mounted units that most dragster guys ran.
The car was built by Allard’s works and incorporated the finer points of several American chassis that were on the market during that time. It looks a lot like a a Scotty Fenn Chassis Research piece, but it was scratch built by Allard’s boys. The ran in many events up until 1964 when it was replaced, but the good news is that this dragster, which was the only vehicle like it in the whole of England for a few years sparked a massive interest in drag racing and hot rodding that carries today. After its racing days were over, it was put in a barn and then changed hands a couple of times before ending up in a British museum. A few of years ago a group got together and took on the restoration of the car and as you’ll see in the video below, they have this thing running good. The car was debuted in 2012 if we remember right, looking like a million bucks.
This video shows a recent fire up or tuning session and the sound is mintolicious. We dig the fact that it looks like the car is sitting in the middle of a quiet English neighborhood and then gets to cackling like a total bad ass. It isn’t often that you get to see and hear an old hemi, on nitro, being force fed by a crank mounted blower. Hit the link below and you’ll get the symphony provided by nitro!
PRESS PLAY TO HEAR THE RESTORED ALLARD DRAGSTER CACKLE AND SOUND AWESOME IN ENGLAND!
Wow, that just gives me goosebumps seeing such a piece of nostalgic history come to life, especially with the crew in (i think) period-correct white coveralls (gotta love the tobacco pipe! lol) … it’s so cool to know how much the UK embraced drag racing just like the US after WWII, at least in sanctioned track racing… so similar yet so different. Dig the front mounted blower, and the UK rules that demanded them, reminds me of the Bonneville streamliners, keeping everything tucked in tight.. Very cool video, thanks for sharing, that was neat!
Just one correction Brian. The blower is a front mounted Potvin resealed and overhauled for us by Littlfields. Mooneyes supplied us with a Moon fuel tank for our remote switch over rig from methanol to Nitro. Hopefully you should, if things go to plan, see the Allard in the flesh in the USA at some point.