The Allard Clipper is a three-wheeled microcar designed by David Gottlieb, who commissioned the Allard Motor Company to produce two prototype chassis and a self-coloured fibre-glass body. It is powered by a rear-mounted Villiers 24B 346 cc (21 in3) single-cylinder two-stroke motorcycle engine connected by triple “V” belt drive to a Burman gearbox driving the left rear-wheel via a chain.[1][2]
Production began at the Encon Motors workshop site in Fulham in 1954,[1] but the car’s weak transmission and cooling problems made it “woefully unreliable”. It was one of the first British-built vehicles to use a fibre-glass body,[3] but the manufacturer, Hordern-Richmond, was inexperienced with the technology, resulting in rising costs and the cancellation of the project after only about twenty units had been produced.[1]
1954 Allard Clipper Wikimedia Commons
Manufacturer:
Allard Motor Company
Production:
1953–1955 20 made
Sales brochure. The five would be three in the front bench seat and two in the rear dickey seats. Below the Radar
The motoring journalist Chris Rees has described the Allard Clipper as an “almost wilfully odd and desperately crude device”.[3] It was probably one of the last cars to offer the option of a dickey seat, known in America as a rumble seat, in the rear boot.[2]
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