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In many ways this was the father of the Euro-American hybrid genre, although it lacked the visual glamour of its successors and really owed more to the pre-war variety of V8 hybrid.
South London motor trader Sydney Allard based the first of his famous rugged sports cars on Ford V8 power. His pre-war special cut its teeth in mud-plugging trails but it wasn't until after World War Two that Allard decided to go into production. The K1 and J1 of 1946-48 were primitive but very fast, especially when fitted with the bigger 3.9 Mercury version of the well-tried flat-head Ford V8. Production blossomed with more civilised versions such as the four-seater L-Type and the Monte Carlo rally-winning - and best-selling - P1 saloon with up to 4.4 litres.
But the most exciting and coveted of the breed was the J2/J2X of 1949, a stark four-wheeled motorbike of a car that, with the more modern type of overhead-valve Cadillac V8, could accelerate more quickly than the Jaguar XK120.
It was the launch of the Jaguar, however, that sounded the death knell of the less-than-elegant Allard and many of its ilk. These cars were produced in tiny numbers and couldn't compete with mass-market Jaguar in value-for-money terms. Sales fell sharply after 1953 and the company produced its last car - the Palm Beach - in 1958, a belated bid for the Austin Healey market. With the benefit of hindsight, perhaps Sydney Allard peaked too early.
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