Build: March 1939
In February 1939 The Autocar mentions Silcock’s new V12 Allard being built. Lush says it was completed in March 1939. Presumably the V12 touring Allard Special which Soames drove on the Colmore on 25 February was ELX503. The first use of FLX650 I can establish is on the Lands End Trial on 7-8April 1939.
It was the first car to feature the handsome “new look” body, with fully flowing wings and full touring fitments and was described in a Road Test in The Motor who concluded “it represents an excellent effort to achieve a compromise between the requirements of a fast road car and those of a trials machine”.
HISTORY
A very handsome car when first built it was used extensively and successfully in the few months pre-war by its first owner, Commander DG Silcock who achieved the triple award for competing in the Lands End, Exeter and Edinburgh trials, the Brooklands Motor Course certificate for completing 100 miles in an hour, and drove across France to compete in the La Turbie hill climb near Nice. He kept it through the war years, blanking off one bank of 6 cylinders for economy, and had it recommissioned at Adlards in early 1946 after which he used it on a few trials and loaned it to Adlards to be included in the London Cavalcade in July 1946. Ken McAlpine then bought FLX650 and used it regularly in trials until the end of 1947, often appearing in the results lists. I can find no clear record of it being used after this time until the 1950 Alpine Rally where Len Potter wrote it off, a photo of the crashed car showing it to have been re-registered as NPB14?, athough as he had fitted a Mercury engine it is possible that some of his appearances in trials during the previous two years were in fact using FLX650.
SPECIFICATION
Chassis
- The Motor Road Test5 gives the wheelbase as 8’4″, the same as the two seater V8 and shorter than the dimensions specified for V12 cars of 8’6 1⁄2″ or 9′ for a 1939 V12 Touring model.
Steering and brakes
- Steering described as very light, with 2 1⁄2 turns lock to lock. Independent front suspension, which would have been a Ballamy divided axle, which The Motor said “gives a standard of riding comfort superior to the average stiffly sprung sports car”.
- Brakes would have been cable brakes on all four wheels with a fly-off handbrake.
Engine
- V12 Lincoln 4379cc, set fairly well back. Aluminium heads.
Body
- A smart and well finished sports car. A comfortable two-three-seater body by Whittingham and Mitchell, the rear transverse seat being “for occasional use”. A specially low bonnet line, deeply valanced fully flowing front wings with countersunk headlights and sidelights. Fuel tank built into the flowing tail.
- McAlpine later modified the body, fitting strip wings and a modified tail, to improve its performance as a trials car.
WHERE IS IT NOW?
Written off and scrapped on the 1950 Alpine Rally.
