“By the time I’d lifted my foot it had gone from 50 to 125, tail-wagging like Allards should and leaving lots of smoke”
I have met a lot of Allard owners, and I’ve never met a dull one. People who enjoy driving Allards tend to be quirky, entertaining, even eccentric, and you could say that the same goes for their cars. If an owner grows to be like his or her dog, then maybe Allard owners grow to be like their cars.
Certainly Anthony Martinis is an unusual fellow with an unusual Allard, like two different-shaped pieces of the same jigsaw. The car looks like a J2 on steroids. The man is tall, spare and craggy, with poker-faced humour just below the surface. He is also 94 years old.
After Jim Tiller’s unreal orange projectile (Full throttle, March 2020), this has to be the most powerful Allard in the world – and it gets driven on the road. The unpainted aluminium body, with twin headrests behind the cockpit, is polished to a mirror finish. At the front the headlights are joined by four spotlights, and a mass of badges covers the grille – yet thanks to a carefully ducted cooling system the car does not overheat, even in the sun of Anthony’s native Sacramento, California. Twin spare wheels are slung on each side of the bonnet, and the tail is flared wide to cover the greatly increased rear track. The wheels are massive Dayton wires, and the dashboard boasts 15 gauges.
Actually, it didn’t leave the little Allard factory on Clapham High Street as a genuine J2. It started life as a 1950 P1 saloon, delivered new to Hollywood actor Danny Thomas. It was New Year’s Day 1993 when Anthony pulled it out of a Californian junkyard, and started the car’s long metamorphosis. The chassis was completely remade, shortened, reinforced and truss-welded. Stronger front suspension stayed loyal to Sydney Allard’s questionable swing-axle philosophy, but with coil/damper units and using totally reworked steering. At the back are coil/damper units and a Lincoln diff. Wilwood disc brakes are fitted all round.
During its ongoing development, this beast has had three engines. The first was the classic Ford flathead V8, in triple-Stromberg hot-rod tune. But that didn’t pump Anthony’s blood hard enough, so he put together a 1996 four-cam, 5-litre Ford mill, running a massive Whipple supercharger. It was a hugely impressive piece of kit, but it wasn’t really a road engine. It revved to 6800rpm, yet on the road there was little grunt below 3000rpm. Anthony likes his Allard to be usable, so
