The Allard Farrallac
The Farrallac, as it is today, came about when Don Farrell decided he wanted to improve the performance of his J2, and resolve the poor pick up performance of the American Carter carburettors. The Company had fitted four dual choke Solex P11 carburettors to Rupert Larrinaga’s JR, which Sydney occasionally shared with him at Prescott and Shelsley. No doubt he recognised how much better the Solex performed against the Carters. Don discovered that two sets of Solex manifolds had been made and that the second set was stored in the collection of Allard spares housed on the upper floors of the Head Office at Clapham High Street. At this time we were able to supply a ZF differential which had been designed to fit the Allard De Dion differential unit.
During my discussions with Don he said his aim was to build a light weight tubular chassis and use both front and rear Allard axle assemblies and alter the car’s front to rear balance by moving the engine further forward. I had been engaged in an exercise to explore a replacement for the Allard front swing axle and suggested to Don he might like to consider using this McPherson type front axle design.
Having looked at this option I concluded that a better proposition would be to design a double wishbone arrangement, using as many Allard parts as possible. It was agreed with Sydney Allard that I would assist Don with his rebuild as my own project and the Company would supply materials plus manufacture any of the special parts required.
Front Suspension
The wishbones were slightly unequal in length being tubular construction with phosphor bronze pivots for the chassis mountings and fabricated mountings for both lower and upper suspension joints. Consideration was given to use aircraft style Rose joints, however the cost was excessive. (Current ‘rod end’ joints were not available at that time!) The outer suspension joints were made by Automotive Products and were used on the Ford 400E light van. The uprights were a steel fabrication having the stub axle shafts bolted into the upright, allowing the Allard splined hub, complete with bearings, to be used. Also it was possible to retain both Allard brake drums and back plates.
The Mk2 Palm Beach was designed to have an optional 11.7” diameter front disc brake arrangement and it was agreed that the calliper mountings would be incorporated in the upright fabrication. This addition would allow disc brakes to be fitted at a later stage. However, it would require the Mk2 Palm Beach hub to be used in conjunction with Girling sourced discs. One of the design criteria was to achieve minimal bump steer by locating the steering arms at their optimum relationship to a Jaguar 140 rack and pinion steering box. The steering arms were Ford Zephyr being bolted to a machined ‘U’ section which was part of the upright fabrication.
Rear Axle
The rear axle was incorporated with two modifications, the first being to use the more accurate peg and slider for lateral location, a system used on the prototype J2’s. The production J2’s used the less accurate Panhard rod which avoided an unacceptable level of wear and noise. Secondly the J2 De Dion radius rods were replaced by the Allard JR style twin parallel equal length twin radius rods.
Tubular Chassis Frame
I explored two options with Don, the first being the twin tube design as used by Allard on Palm Beach and JR models or a simple ladder type chassis. Don opted for the simpler ladder type which was easier to construct and almost certainly lighter and more importantly torsionally stiffer. Tube size was I believe 3.5” diameter and 12 SWG seamless cold drawn mild steel of the era.
The chassis rebuild was carried out by Don Farrell in his workshop in the Edgware Road, Hendon, and was completed in early March 1958. With my agreement, my layout drawings and sketches for the front suspension were retained by the Allard Motor Company. Some 55 years on the Allard Farrallac is still a very competitive car, owned and driven by Tony and Pia Bianchi having a best Silverstone Club circuit lap time of 1m 06.4sec.
