You can read part 4 of David’s memoirs here
Projects and Parts
The Steyr Allard – ‘Single Seater’ 1946
The Steyr ‘Single Seater’ was built as a private venture by Sydney, following the success of various pre and post-war specials, for example HLF 601. The Allard Motor Company Ltd came into being in February 1945 with the announcement of new models in January 1946. The competition successes of the Allard specials and the introduction of J1 and L Types was good publicity for Sydney.
However the Steyr ‘single seater’ was to be a private venture. It was thanks to a call from Bobby Baird that two surplus German Steyr V-8 engines were available. The potential single seater engine had not been decided, except for the unreliable over head valve US Ford conversion (not Ardun) that Sydney had used in 1945-6. While these German Steyr V-8 engines produced less than 50 BHP, it’s original design was intended mainly for static generating power using very low grade fuel. The potential of a light weight air cooled V-8 with overhead valves and hemi-spherical combustion chambers was too good to dismiss.
By replacing the cast iron cylinder barrels with Alfin sleeved liners, high compression pistons, 8 separate Amal carburettors with their own separate float chambers and an unmodified camshaft – 140 BHP was produced. The early thoughts for this single seater Steyr engined car was to use standard Allard parts where ever possible. The side members were standard Allard along with the leaf spring cross member, plus three 3″ diameter cross tubes. To add torsional stiffness the side members were boxed, being lightened with a large number of holes, as were most brackets and webs.
The front axle was based on a standard Allard assembly with parallel pivot axis, rear facing radius rods and leaf spring with Andre friction dampers, instead of the Girling lever type shock absorbers. Adamant Engineering supplied a Marles steering box with a long (14″) sector shaft which was connected via a fibre type coupling to the steering wheel shaft. The front track used Ford 5.75-16” wheels and tyres. The rear axle was a narrowed L type Ford axle giving a track of 52″ with twin rear tyres 5.00-18″ diameter. Coil springs were the suspension medium with a central sliding peg for lateral control and single radius rods mounted on the outside of the chassis side member.
In this basic form the Steyr’s first practise run was at Prescott on the 25th April, 1947, and proved to be very encouraging, being followed by FTD and hill record at Prescott in May. From this point on there were numerous developments including an increase in valve diameters, exhaust pipe stubs replaced by 4 branch manifolds and tail pipes and the 3 speed gearbox with close ratio gears. The gear lever was repositioned outboard of the body, close to the fly off hand brake. While handling was initially satisfactory there were some misgivings about the rear suspension plus it’s ‘dislike’ of uneven track surfaces.
It was felt that the problem lay in the un-sprung mass of the modified Ford rear axle. During the winter there were considerations on using an independent swing axle. However the best solution was deemed to be a De Dion type layout. Using the Ford based axle the conclusion was made to modify it to a De Dion axle design. The pros and cons for independent against De Dion was far reaching as far as production of J2, J2X, K3, and P2 were concerned. Using the Ford axle casing, shafts, differential, crown wheel and pinion it was possible to modify the differential unit in such a way that this could be bolted to the two cross tubes and still retain the torque tube, with a connected 2-3/4″ diameter dead axle tube.