My final involvement was the body. While aluminium welding was seen as almost a ‘black art’ I did not see it this way and constructed a new nose, using a home-made set of rollers and panel beating dollies, to fit onto the ‘Farrell’ front. The new nose was rather long, however it was a solution which did not involve major alteration to the original Farrell body centre section. The rear end was shortened and a Ferrari style recessed flat panel was made.
Gordon entered the Manta for a Brands Hatch sprint for himself and for me to try in practice only. In the limited time available it did not appear to have any obvious quirks, the only slight criticism being the self-adjusting Jaguar brakes which did not instil a lot of confidence. Apart from my wish to see a new competitive Allard J series I need to acknowledge Gordon for the use of his garage. Not only had I finished my own car there but part of the Steyr rebuild had also been done in this garage.
At this time there was a constant flow of technical letters regarding the whole range of Allard models and I seemed to spend large amounts of time dealing with these queries. A limited number of spare parts were still produced, the front grille being the most sought after, as were requests for bonnet badges.
I was introduced to the part completed Steyr ‘Sports Car’, which was being constructed in the small workshop below the Clapham High Street Head Office. To complete this I had to design the drive flanges for the rear drive shafts. A De Dion axle was used from the Clark designed 1950 hill climb car with a quick-change centre differential unit. Instead of the usual 12-inch diameter drum brakes it was possible to adapt Ford Zephyr 9 inch diameter by 1.75 inch rear brakes. Instead of the usual Hardy Spicer drive shafts, this axle utilised a Layrub rubber coupling at one end of the shaft and the conventional hardy Spicer needle roller joint at the other end. The extension of the shaft on bump and rebound was taken through the Layrub coupling. This worked extremely well, provided axle bump and rebound movements were no greater than 1.75 inches and had the considerable advantage of not affecting the rear suspension characteristics when the power was applied.