Description
Imperial War Museum | Duxford, Cambridgeshire
Viewing: Tues 8th April from 12pm
Auction: Wed 9th April from 9am
1953 Allard Palm Beach MkI
1 of just 80 Allard Palm Beach manufactured
Estimate
£40, 000 - £50, 000
Lot details
Registration No: 4655 H
Chassis No: 21Z5080
MOT: Exempt
1 of just 16 home market examples
1 of just 76 Allard Palm Beach marques manufactured
Original and interesting registration number
Sympathetically upgraded, restored and improved by its second owner (out of four) in c. 1990
Ownership connection to the silver screen’s Norman Wisdom and TV's 'The Saint'
Racing driver Sydney Allard's post-war cars combined the same virtues of lightweight, independent front suspension and an abundance of American V8 power, which had been features of his first trials special of the mid-1930s. These favourable characteristics enabled Allard cars to establish a formidable competition record in the immediate post-war years; Allard himself finishing 3rd at Le Mans in a J2 two-seater and winning the Monte Carlo Rally outright in a P2 saloon. Introduced in 1952, the pretty, alloy-bodied Palm Beach was Sydney Allard's final sports car design, employing a K3-type tubular chassis and his trademark independently suspended swing axles at the front with a coil-sprung live axle at the rear. Of all -aluminium construction and a choice of engines it proved to be very desirable, indeed, of the 76 MkIs built, 58 were ordered by global customers as far afield as the USA, New Zealand, Sweden, Madagascar and Mexico. Of the 16 ‘home market’ cars, it is thought only a few survive today. Approximately 76 of all types were built up to 1958 and there is a very interesting complete list of every chassis number car with other various information on file with this lot.
‘4655 H’ was purchased new from Dagenham Motors in 1953 by the director of Norman Wisdom films and TV’s The Saint, Mr John Paddy Carstairs. Carstairs was friendly with petrolhead actor Norman Wisdom who, it is said, used this car often. Its second owner Mr K. C Baker of Finsbury, London WC1, paid £325 plus £36. 00 for insurance, having £277 on hire purchase, with both the original receipt and agreement on file. Mr Baker even hill climbed ‘4655 H’ with reasonable success, replacing the original Ford Zephyr power plant with a “tuned’ version and upgrading the brakes and various other items for more performance.
Some years later and still not satisfied with the power, Mr Baker decided to carry out a swap to the more powerful Jaguar powerplant, just as Sydney Allard had always envisaged for the Palm Beach. Originally, Jaguar would not oblige, hence he went to Ford but when he started to build the Palm Beach Mk2 Jaguar agreed to supply. Sadly very few MkIIs were built due to the Allard Motor Co. going broke. A Jaguar MkX 3. 8 engine with a manual gearbox and a triple carb was sourced and fitted along with other modifications. Fast forward again, and to 1990, when Mr Barker decided to carry out a complete overhaul. The Palm Beach benefitted from Jaguar disc brakes all round, Jaguar steering, chrome wire wheels & instruments to go with the extensively overhauled 3. 8 engine (photographs on file) little was left untouched over some four and a half years of works.
Subsequently the subject of a five-page magazine article in 2000, Mr Baker kept the car for some 52 years before reluctantly selling it due to ill-health to his friend c. 2012, who pretty much kept the car mothballed. It was he who upgraded the original Jaguar Moss gearbox for a 4. 2 E-Type all-synchromesh gearbox. '4655 H' was finally in the specification that Sydney Allard originally longed for. The Palm Beach entered current ownership in 2022 and this will be the very first time the car has ever been on the open sales market since 1960!
