The International competition History of the Rochdale Olympic. Help please.

[eclectic]

A friend of mine has one of these underated cars, and I understand that someone ran one with great enthusiasm and some success in the 1960's.

According to "Time and Two Seats" no Rochdale has ever taken part in a championship GT or sportscar race.

However, if we can find some event, race, rally or whatever that included a Rochdale Olympic, voila, FIA papers and a 'new' British marque back on the circuits with that lovely tunable Cortina engine.

So my friends, can we find the holy grail? Can we seek the ineffable truth? Did a Rochdale Olympic ever compete in an International event?

[gfm]

No.

;-)

[Dave Brand]

When I saw the header I thought this was the 'Shortest book ever written' thread!

Good luck in your quest - I'd love to see an Olympic racing; sorry I can't help.

[Heebeegeetee]

A gentleman by the name of Robin Stretton, a founder member of the Historic Rally Car Register, is competing in an Olympic in the forth coming HRCR Classic Trophy rally, as we are, starting next weekend.
( http://www.classictrophy.com ). This is a five day event, running around the northern part of the Alps, etc.
He runs a company called Boost Graphics, (http://www.boost.freeuk.com ) and could probably be contacted therein. It’s possible you both could share information.

[TimD]

Sorry chap, so far all I can find is a Rochdale which competed in the 1964 Redex Trophy series, in BRSCC nationals.

I'll keep trying though.

[Ted Walker]

A chap called John Anstice-Brown raced an Olympic in club racing in the 60s. He was I think the editor of Motor magazine at the time . There was an article published in the Motor about his racing season.

[John Turner]

I have a book called Specialist Sportscars written by Peter Philby, published in 1974, which gives a potted history of the Olympic. Apparently one was lent to Motor Sport in 1961 to cover the 1961 RAC Rally, following which the mag described it as a 'British Porsche'! Its aerodynamics and performance (with Riley 1.5 engine) were pretty good for the day and certainly the factory expected (hoped?) it would be used in competition since they showed it at Copenhagen's Racing Car Show in 1961, and the phase II version at the 1963 London Racing Car show. It seems that a few were made with lightweight shells for competition and 'achieved some success in autocross and rally work'. Unfortunately, this is not elaborated upon, but it would be interesting to see how Eclectic's enquiry develops. I would have thought this pretty and effective GT would have been suitable for circuit racing in the early to mid 60's.

[eclectic]

So far not much good news, but please keep your thinking caps on all you historians out there!

If anyone has a contact address for John Anstice-Brown they could perhaps email me privately so I can write to him? Please do not post his address on this forum.... too many odd ball types out there.

Lets keep on trying.

[eclectic]

I have contacted John Anstice-Brown and he reckons that the only event that might have had International Status was a sprint/drag event at Santa Pod, and i doubt that would qualify, however he said someone whose name he couldn't remember had raced a Rochdale before him...and might have more info. Now is there anyone out there who might know who that was?

[eclectic]

I'm posting again to stop this falling off the bottom! how do we retrieve threads that dissapear into the pits of hell at the bottom of the page? Does anyone know?

Anyway, any info to help this thread from dying gracefully would be welcomed.

[Peter Mallett]

Rather like your Rochdale, they don't disappear entirely. You just change your settings to "the last 60 days" or whatever. Then scroll through. However to keep a thread at the top you need to keep posting.

[juliangould]

Originally Posted by eclectic

A friend of mine has one of these underated cars, and I understand that someone ran one with great enthusiasm and some success in the 1960's.

According to "Time and Two Seats" no Rochdale has ever taken part in a championship GT or sportscar race.

However, if we can find some event, race, rally or whatever that included a Rochdale Olympic, voila, FIA papers and a 'new' British marque back on the circuits with that lovely tunable Cortina engine.

So my friends, can we find the holy grail? Can we seek the ineffable truth? Did a Rochdale Olympic ever compete in an International event?

Jeremy jackson sprinted his lightweight mark 2 Olympic at Blackbush in 1965
which was the year that the Americans brought over their dragsters. Big Daddy Don Garlits etc. Would the American presence make it an International meeting? According to Richard Parker, Rochdale made at least 2 lightweight mark 2's and perhaps one more. Jerry Jackson, now living and working in Florida reckons that his car weighed around 8.5 cwt. It was very quick !
I have a picture but cannot find a way to attach it.
A few years before he died, I helped Richard Parker repair the mk2 mould and produce a one-off mk2/3 which I don't think he ever finished. He raised the floor in the mould to make the car 4 inches lower.
If you have an email address I'll send the picture

[Dennis.Doyle]

Did you know a thread started on the classic car forum today on Rochdales:

http://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=93198

If you can post the picture here (via the insert image button at the top of the reply window?) I'm sure we'd all love to see it. If not, could you email me & I'll have a go?

[eclectic]

Wow, what a long wait! Thanks for that, I will check if that counts.

[Dennis.Doyle]

There are some names & references to articles on the lightweight versions in the Rochdale Owners Club bulletin. See:

http://www.rochdale-owners-club.co.uk/articles.htm

Next, Paul Rochdale has researched their competition history. You should be able to contact him through the club or following up this other forum link:

http://forums.atlasf1.com/printthrea...threadid=85855

That mentions a load of names of old Rochdale racers. You can try putting out calls to them or even the hard slog of Googling them.

Finally, this quote comes from guy in the Netherlands:

“My attempts to get a Lotus twink version accepted for historic racing were not accepted (too fast?) but went like the clappers with a full race A series.”

Doesn’t sound promising but he might have researched the history abroad a bit? Could try to find him via:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...t=99267&page=3

[Jeremy Hall]

When I ran Post Historic Raod sports for the HSCC 25 years ago one of the requirements for entry was International history. No Rochdale ever found any and given that they were never homologated it is improbable that they did anything as without homologation they would have struggled to get into any event except free formula like the Liege Rome Liege rally or some such.
I suspect not.

[juliangould]

If you require homologation for FIA, how did they manage to list such vehicles as Divas and Fairthorpe electrons, where production was so limited??

My page states that I cannot post attachments.

To Dennis: sorry to be so IT stupid, but can't see your email address.
Tell me where to look or print it out and picture will be sent

Julian gould

[Dennis.Doyle]

Another famous competitor who raced one was Harry Ratcliffe (Britsh Vita?). You could try to find him, though I think his car was written off quite quickly.

Whilst you may well need homologation/FIA papers if you want to do high status events in Europe, if you just want to enjoy the thing in competition you don't. I am sure any hillclimb or sprint would welcome you.

P.S. have PM'd you Julian

[Jeremy Hall]

Originally Posted by juliangould

If you require homologation for FIA, how did they manage to list such vehicles as Divas and Fairthorpe electrons, where production was so limited??

My page states that I cannot post attachments.

To Dennis: sorry to be so IT stupid, but can't see your email address.
Tell me where to look or print it out and picture will be sent

Julian gould

Diva's were Group 4 GT's -25 off for homologation, Fairthorpes 100 off for GT homologation-the owners of the companies homologated them because they wanted to have them in competition-and /or could afford it. One assumes Rochdale did/could not.
Also many of them were economic with the truth-maybe still are.

[juliangould]

economy seems to be the answer!
Fairthorpes were, I think at Denham. We lived close bur rarely saw one.
Air vice marshall bennett ran a Ford Zephyr engined one at Goodwood - very hairy, But I'll bet there were never 100 electrons.
If anyone wants a photo of the Olympic at blackbush, email me at julian@centrefurb.com

[Dennis.Doyle]

To run an authentic international historic race it seems right & propper that a car or a given type of car actually did so in the past. Hence the challenge is to find some real documentary evidence rather than relying on wishful thinking.

If you want to recreate UK club racing then there is obviously no problem with a Rochdale - plenty of hard evidence of that.

If you want to compete against similar vehicles, maybe try sprints - there is at least one Fairthorpe Electron Minor that still competes regularly at Aintree & I'm sure we'd all like to see more similar types of car about.

[zefarelly]

Like the Rochdale, the Tornado Talisman is another car that interests me due to its FOrd engine/box, the TT was homologated with a 1340 engine for rallying, although later the 1500 was a production engine, I'm quoting engine prep for someone for a TT at the moment and we're discussing which capacity to do (1500!) there are plenty of early 60's sports cars that where made with ford engines but none of then where homologated due to the quantities made, and strangely those that where, where done so with different engines ( think TVR with MGB, Marcos with Volvo, albeit in 1996!!!)

[mike faloon]

a friend has the ex john anstice brown lightweight rochdale (one of four or five we think) plus another four rochdale olympics in a chicken shed in cheshire

[Jeremy Hall]

Two things Zef, the TT was homologated full stop, so the rallying thing is not important, it can race on the extant homologation from with a 1340 engine. The Marcos did race Internationally in 1964, in two or three examples, and the retro homologation was based on that fact.

[scholar96]

I have owned the ex John Anstice-brown lightweight for quite a few years now, we have the full race history for this car and have traced most of its owners, which includes some notable names including Brian Classic.

John (AB) said it wasn't too sucessful when racing but some of the results are quite good, the neerest thing to international racing for it was the Gold cup at Oulton Park in the early '60's, unfortunately it was one of the support races rather than the international race.

Olympics have been raced with the HSCC in one of there classes for sports cars, again unfortunately not international.

We know of 4 cars designated lightweights, JAB car which I own, one built by Derek Bennet of Chevron cars which was written off in testing at Oulton Park, A coventry climax powered car which was sent to Belgium and subsiquently destroyed in an accident, the final car we believe was raced by an American pilot and the story goes that car was destroyed at Nurburgring. There have been rumours of other cars, but in the 30 years I have been restoring Rochdale's I have not seen any evidence to prove this either way.

For more information see www.scholar-racing96.com