More of
Darren Crispin's Query:
"Here is a picture taken
20 years ago. The car still looks this good today. It truly has a sharp
body line and came also in a convertible as well as a roadster model. Any
information that your members can come up with would be fantastic."
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"The car was called the
"186" and was manufactured at our company, Multiplex Mfg. in 1952-54. It
was raced here in the east and later shown at the 1954 New York Automotive
show. They started with a Harley Davidson engine and had some torque problems,
but later settled on Willys 4 and 6 cylinder units. The car project never
made it into full production, but I still have the first prototype (Aluminum
Body) and a fiber glassed coupe of which I am enclosing a picture. We are
restoring these cars now and I would love to find out what happened to
Allied or if there are any other "Swallow" bodied cars still out there.
Any help you could offer would be great." |
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"My name is Rory Rinebold
and I also own an Allied. My car is the large body meant to fit on the
the Kurtis 500 chassis, or a modified domestic chassis. Unfortunately,
my car was made with the latter, but I love it just the same. I am currently
restoring the car with a new Ford frame and Jag suspension and a nicely
warmed over Chevy Small block. I am starting a registry of Allied/Atlas/Vale
owners and currently have six owners, including myself, on the list
and would like to keep in touch. Your car looks a lot like the Bill
Binney Allied/Doretti #359 that raced in So Cal in the mid 50's.
Email Allen Kuhn for pictures of that car.
I have some copies of
early sales brochures of the Allied
Car, one with (who I believe is) Roy Kinch in the background. These
photos were given to me by a real "Cisitalia" owner in Carmel. You mentioned
the engine in your car, is the frame MG ? The alloy body is very interesting!...
are you sure it's not an original Cisitalia? As you can see by my
photo, I've got some work to do." |
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From Don Blair:
"I photographed this car
at the Westwood race track in Coquitlam, British Columbia in Canada in
1986. The body as I recall was fiberglass and it had a Chysler or Dodge
50's era hemi engine. The car was listed in the program as #256 1954 Kurtis
500KK driven by Stewart Wilson of Elko, Nevada." |
From Etceterini expert
John De Boer: "The Atlas/Allied fiberglass "Cisitalia 202 copy" coupe
were made in some numbers and some of the anecdotal "connections" mentioned
may be confused based on assumptions that these bodies are rarer than they
actually are.
For example, my brother
has a white one on an MGTD chassis and it had been fitted in the 1960's
presumably with a Ford 289. Many years ago I compiled a bit of information
and even wrote a brief story for a local MG club newsletter in response
to a member having shared a photo of another car that he saw.
I have not yet made a
serious study and am not yet aware of any definitive way to differentiate
between an Atlas body and an Allied body. If Multiplex also made
a small batch, that is of interest. The only "Multiplex" reference
I have noted thus far is for a car raced by "Harry Fanelli" at Sowega in
1953, race #109, the entry having come from "Henry G. Fanelli" of New Rochelle,
NY. The car, in a distant photo that appeared in Road & Track
(2//54 p29), looked not so much like a Cisitalia but resembled more a Siata-Ford
that had not yet arrived in the USA as of 1953.
If there is an alloy body
"master" for the Multiplex version, then I have to wonder if the body was
removed from a Cisitalia ... which did happen to at least one car in the
East. The west coast Atlas project mold was reputedly taken from Bob Petersen's
(Petersen Publications = Motor Trend, etc.) Cisitalia 202 but I don't have
any idea yet as to which car that might have been or if Petersen even owned
one. That story may have been a confusion with another car as well. |
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