Allegro Club International

[AlexB]

...in one of those 'I almost choked on my Corn flakes' moments.

I bought my Bracken S1 1100 Deluxe in the year 2000, I was 14 years old and seemingly there was a healthy choice of Allegros under £500 back then, I found this one on fish4cars.co.uk (remember them??). It was simply described as 1100, 'yellow 2 door with square wheel', and resided just a sprint up the M6 in Cumbria. A deal ensued, I couldn't haggle; the owner provided homemade scones. I learnt to drive in the old girl, only to be turned away on test day on the grounds that it lacked head restraints!

Anyway, fast forward to 2009 and GBG 793N had been laid up and garaged for around 6 years. The return of the Allegro bug hit me the previous year and resulted in me buying PKT 947M. Having briefly accommodated 3 Allegros, the one in the worst health had to go. So I eBayed the 1100 and, despite it not having turned a wheel in god knows how long (I had a new clutch fitted to get it mobile) it made a healthy £700. The buyer was a historic vehicle collector, had worked for VW as I remember, and had big plans for my humble 1100. A replica BL works rally car was muttered in fact!

As I remember the car:





As it appears today, pictured competing in the 'Poppy Rally', March 17th, 2013:




Some difference! I'd be very eager to learn of the developments with my old car. I did urge the chap to join the club, alas I don't think he has despite the car still sporting a 10 year commemorative ACI sticker. Does anybody know anything about the Poppy Rally series? The Allegro finished 39th out of 69 as detailed here: http://www.classicrally.org.uk/poppy2013/results.php

It's clearly had the help of a donor car - a series 3 by the looks of things, and those Equipe wheels look well. Attention to detail lacking slightly with the Allegro script mounted on the wrong side of the bonnet, but I think it's safe to say that the changes are more than skin deep; it's been up against MGBs, Escorts, Sunbeam Tigers, Datsun 240s, Alfa GTVs etc.

Has anybody seen this car or know anything about it?

Alex
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'When you're travelling economy, go first class'

[J Dawson]

Seems a shame to have done this to a rare car in an uncommon colour.
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Austin - you can DEPEND on it!

1976 Allegro 1100 4-dr saloon

Squeak, rattle & roll

[AlexB]

Perhaps. I thought the Bracken engine paint should have stayed, as it was reasonably popular on BL' s sportier stuff, MGBs, 1300GTs and the like! And it's always the poverty spec cars you see less of these days...
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'When you're travelling economy, go first class'

[Paul-V]

I would actually suspect a reshell: would anybody have really gone to the trouble of fitting Allegro 3 wing repeater lamps etc?

Perhaps the rally is only open to cars manufactured before a particular year, and the 1974 N reg qualified whereas the 1979(?) Allegro 3 didn't?

[Graham]

It looks to me like the only thing transferred off that Bracken car was the number plate! (and maybe the bumpers)

[Andrew Mallett]

And rear lights and bonnet badge.
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Bloke from Norfolk.