Two amazing dragsters – including the first one built in the UK – are appearing at this year’s Race Retro, held at Stoneleigh Park from 12th to 14th March.
The Allard dragster was the brainchild of South London car-maker Sydney Allard, who had made his name building sports cars powered by American Ford and Cadillac V8 engines during the 1950s. By the early ‘60s drag racing had a massive following in the USA and it was inevitable the sport would cross the pond.
Allard recognized this and started planning the car that’s on show in 1960. He used a Chrysler Hemi V8 fitted with a GMC supercharger, clothed in a lightweight, streamlined body.
The car, currently on display at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, Hampshire, is being restored, and the Allard Chrysler Action Group chairman Brian Taylor, who recently penned the book ‘Crazy Horses: The History of British Drag Racing’ will be on hand to talk about the car’s progress.
Making its debut at Race Retro is a Fiat Topolino-bodied competition altered dragster, fresh from its winter rebuild. It updates the competition altered ‘wars’ of the 1960s, which were the biggest crowd-pleasers at dragstrips across the USA, and now in the UK too.
First pounding the quarter mile in 1979 the car, now named ‘Go Hard or Go Home’, uses a 360 cubic inch (5900cc) engine that has been rebuilt by Team Gridlock, and runs with the Wild Bunch nostalgia drag racing club.
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