1951 Allard J2X

Lot details
Registration No: JM 7942
Chassis No: M777
Mot Expiry: None

AN IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR ALL INTENDING PURCHASERS OF THIS CAR.
At the time of going to press, both ourselves and the Allard fraternity, which included the information in the books by David Kinsella and Tom Lush, believed this car to be the Le Mans 'support' car. Whilst a significant part of the catalogue description is still extremely relevant, we are now of the belief that the early part of its history was inaccurate and we attempt to give you what we now believe to be the correct story.
We do however state that this may not be definitive or correct, we are simply stating that with the best Allard brains on it in recent days the concencus of opinion from people including Gavin Allard (Sidney's grandson & current holder of the build record compiled by Tom Lush), Josh Sadler (who began a database for the AOC in the 1980's) and Paul Harvey (the ex AOC historian) is now as follows.
Paul Harvey states "In all there were 14 Le Mans bodied cars of which 13 were on production J2X chassis and this one. All were slightly different, paricularly in the relative position of the headlights and brake slots. From the photos I've got, OVT 983 (Larrinaga's car) and JM 7942 (Alexander & Reece) are one and the same car. Of these 14 cars, all except the Curtis car and Larrinaga's car went to the other side of the Atlantic. The Curtis car became 'Butch' and is now in France."
It is clear that JM 7942 is neither of the two 1952 race cars as both are accounted for. There is actually no mention of a 'reserve' car and if it was faster than Sidney's car, as reported, why wasn't it used? JM 7942 had, and still has, although we are not certain it is the original unit, a Cadillac engine whereas the other two had Chrysler engines and again it would difficult to understand having a reserve car different to the two race cars.
The J2 and the J2X are significantly different and the story that Lt. Col Larrinaga changed his J2 to a J2X is difficult to understand. Larrinaga expected his J2 to be converted to a J2X, as per his letter in the file, but was surprised to receive a Le Mans styled bodied car. However his father ordered and paid for all his racing and it is feasible that he might not have known exactly what took place. Allard were, at that time, making J2X chassis anyway and so it would probably have been cheaper and easier to give him a new car rather than convert the old car.
The difficulty is that this car has the chassic number M777 which derived from an 'M' type of 1948 which crashed killing the owner. The only reason we can come up with for giving this car this obsolete chassis number would be to eliminate the need to pay purchase tax and this would tally with it being a completely new car.
A trawl trough the letters in the history file makes interesting reading but the concencus of opinion is that this particular car was built new for Lt. Col. Rupert De Larrinaga and supplied on a new J2X chassis with Le Mans bodywork and to the Le Mans specification. That specification included twin brake master cylinders, Allfin drums the fronts of which are ventilated with a series of holes and the arrangements for a quick change differential which is not fitted.
It is therefore thought that Larrinaga received a brand new J2X leaving the J2 at the factory. Hitchins went to Rhodesia and it is believed that his J2 Le Mans car went with, or after, him and then ended up in Cincinnati. The J2X we have on offer today then probably metamorphasied into the Alexander car and this is helped by the fact that in the team photo on P149 of David Kinsella's book, which probably pre-dates the 1956 Brighton crash, the colour of Alexander's J2X is the non-standard shade of Green that was specifically mixed for Larrinaga.

The early part of the catalogue description is incorrect and therefore we have deleted it and adjusted the rest of the information.

In 1954 de Larringa part-exchanged the J2X at the works for a new Allard JR but took with him the registration number OVT 983, which he kept on all his cars, and the J2X was allocated the present chassis number - M777. Later, the works sold the Le Mans specification car to enthusiastic amateur driver Eric Alexander, who had a stable of three Allards, a P2 Monte Carlo Saloon, an 'M' type Coupe and the J2X. Eric was an hotelier from Worthing and the J2X was treated as a semi-works car and as such he received a lot of help from the factory. In the 1950's it competed in sprints and hill climbs all over the country and at the Brighton Speed Trials in 1956 he just avoided a head-on collision with an ornamental lampost but in the end he simply gave it a glancing blow but the lamppost collapsed giving rise to a bill being sent by Brighton Corporation for £275.
The car passed to John Patterson of Royston who in turn sold it to Robin Sadler in the early 1967. In 1968, when dicing at Silverstone with the present Managing Director of Haymarket Publications, Simon Taylor, in his AC, the Allard spun off into a bank and was severely damaged. It was purchased by the late Mr. Roger Reece of Surrey and completely rebuilt to take part in many more sprints and hill climbs. Sadly he was killed in 1987, in an accident unrelated to the car, and it has laid dormant ever since although the battery was disconnected and all the fluids were drained out at that time.
In the history file there is correspondence from Lt. Col de Larrinaga, Dudley Hume (the chief draughtsman and chassis designer for the Allard Motor Company) and others, the original green logbook, the V5 registration document and various copies of relevant history.
We would like to express our thanks Mr. Mike Knapman and Mr. Michael Ware who writes the 'Lost and Found' column for Classic and Sportscar for their help in tracing the history of this wonderful car.

This information makes this car possibly the most interesting J2X in existence and we all hope that the new owner will treasure and enjoy his new car and that in time paperwork will come to light that will enable us all to know exactly what happened.