If anybody could claim to have beat Carroll Shelby to the punch in crafting an aluminum-bodied roadster powered by stout American V-8 horsepower, it would be Sydney Herbert Allard. Allard built his first car back in 1929 and turned out fewer than 2,000 racing and street versions of his sleek two-seater before he shut down his company 30 years later. Gary Thompson, a well-known Wichita car guy who started the Kansas Car Enthusiast magazine and TV show, always wanted an Allard of his own.
"Unfortunately, you're looking at $200,000 to $300,000 for an original Allard these days," he said. "My wife, Lisa, is used to me buying $2,000 cars and dragging them home."
Fortunately for Thompson, he found an unbuilt vintage replica car kit of an Allard J2X manufactured by Elite Enterprises (now defunct) in Minnesota.
"I bought the kit from a hot rod shop in Maybank, Texas, from an old guy in his 80s. It had been in storage 20 years," Thompson said. That was about a year and a half ago.
"I took it to Frank Edwards (of Precision Fiberglass in Augusta), who builds fiberglass T-buckets, '32 roadsters, that sort of stuff," he said.
"He did about 90 percent of it... I just got in the way," Thompson confessed. Means Motors in Wichita put together a 350 Chevy V-8 freshened with headers and an Edelbrock intake and carb to mate to the 350 Chevy automatic transmission, which in turn provides power to an S-10 pickup differential.
"It's basically a street rod," Thompson freely admitted. "When I drove it home, I kind of touched the gas and it really scatted."
Finishing details proved a challenge. "One of the biggest problems was finding a grille for this," he said. The kit manual suggested using flexible plastic door edge guards and chrome tape. "Frank, bless his heart, cut out some medal and made the grille for it."
Robbies Hobbies did the plating and Economy Engravers produced all the necessary Allard badging.
Ben Lawrence of Collision Center of Andover painted the fiberglass-bodied Allard a deep red and Reeves Engineering produced the six metal ventilation ports in the hood.
"It's a nice car, but it's not very practical for daily driving. You don't pass any others like it on the street," said Thompson.
Unfortunately, with college expenses looming for his two daughters, Thompson has made the tough decision to sell the car at auction in Tulsa next month.
But at least now he can say he not only owned an Allard tribute car, but helped build one, too.
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