Allard then began selling what today is called "turnkey-minus" cars, or complete, assembled cars without engines or transmissions. This is a common way of selling kit cars nowadays, made popular by companies such as Superformance, but in 1950 this was a new concept. Allard shipped assembled but engine-less J2s to his small network of American dealers who installed a variety of V-8s. The first Cadillac-Allard was brewed up at Frick-Tappet Motors on Long Island and raced by Tom Cole. Power for most Cad-Allards came from 331-inch Caddys bored and stroked to 376 inches. Roller tappets replaced the factory hydraulic lifters, and high-compression pistons were installed. Two Carter carbs were the usual practice, although some had three carbs. Power output was from 250 to 300 hp in full-race form. With only around 2,350 pounds to haul around, the Caddy propelled the J2 at a record-setting rate (this is roughly the same power-to-weight ratio as the later 289 Cobra). Other engines were also used, most successfully the Chrysler Hemi which put out around 320 hp in road racing form. Mercury, Oldsmobile, Lincoln, Studebaker and other engines were also tried but with only modest success.
Behind these potent, if not porky engines lived (for short periods of time) a variety of transmissions. In 1950 there were no domestic four-speed boxes, so the hot rodder's favorite, the Ford three-speed with Lincoln Zephyr gears, was the usual choice. However, the big OHV V-8s were a bit much for the fragile Ford box and several Allards were raced with automatics! General Motors three-speed manual boxes (stronger than the Ford box but saddled with wider-ratio gears) were also used.
The J2 hit the racing world like a hurricane. In 1950 the Allard J2 was the quickest production car in the world, and it could easily out-sprint a Jaguar XK-120 or a 2L Ferrari. Not that the J2 was capable of winning races in just anybody's hands. It garnered a reputation for being treacherous to drive, due to a combination of insufficient frame rigidity and the camber characteristics of the split front axle. In a hard corner, the front suspension would jack up into positive camber, much like the back end of an early Corvair. Although this was frequently blamed on the concept of the split axle, Lotus and Mallock in England built many racing cars with this system that handled perfectly, and the real villain may have been a narrow spring base (the distance between the springs) at the front of the chassis, which gave the axles more leverage than could be controlled.
Carroll Shelby drove several Allards in 1952 and 1953, and described the handling as "Like walking across a floor strewn with marbles." In his autobiography The Carroll Shelby Story, he described his Allard days. "Rigidity definitely was not one of its virtues. In fact, the durn thing had so much whip built into it that you could get the doors to fly open if you cornered fast enough! Any novice who tried to race an Allard and forgot to tread those opening laps with a wary foot stood a good chance of becoming a statistic, a memory." Despite an alarming tendency to swap ends in the blink of an eye, the J2 began mopping up at race tracks due primarily to its impressive power to weight ratio. On the West Coast Bill Pollack drove Tom Carsten's Cad-Allard from 1951 to 1953 and won everything he entered until Phil Hill's Ferrari bested him at Pebble Beach. Erwin Goldschmidt picked up an important win at Watkins Glen in 1951 and Tom Cole and Sydney Allard garnered a staggering third overall at LeMans in 1950. All this performance for only $4,500 less engine!
J2X-The Sequel
In 1951 Allard upgraded the J2 into the J2X by moving the engine forward in the frame 7.5 inches to get more interior room. The suspension was improved, although the basic design remained intact. A hot Cad-Allard was capable of running from 0-to-60 in around 6 seconds, 0-to-100 in under 12 seconds and fly down a long straight at nearly 145 mph.