Rochdale Olympic Gold

[OlympicGold]

So I went ahead and bought a small little British car from 1963, with a full monocoque fibreglass chassis called the Rochdale Olympic. This car has been passed about a bit since the 80's which is when it was last driven, and was in a quite putrid gold colour. These are relatively rare cars, so would like to do it justice. This was from the original ad:




Its now gone to a garage in Yorkshire to be bought back to health. Currently awaiting the next steps:



There's a few different ideas for the car at the moment:

• Engine

The car was originally registered with a 1 litre Ford Engine (998cc) of some sort, and most recently had a Ford 1.5 Kent engine (no longer with the car). To honor this, I would like to put in a more modern 1 litre ford engine - the ecoboost! Its a 700kg car, so should fly with that engine.

• Colour

The car was originally gold in colour, an to honor that I would like to do a black and gold colour scheme, similarish to the Lotus.

Its currently in the garage awaiting its bodywork inspection and to get an engine sorted out! Going to call this project Olympic Gold! There was an original post on Pistonheads from the previous owner, which had some more photos of the car as they found it in 2013/14 here. [url]
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

Ricky

[SturdyHSV]

A what now? You're quite sure that's not a Porsche 356?

That looks like it'll be a labour of love

[spreadsheet monkey]

Interesting stuff. Properly obscure!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_(car)

[Andy665]

They were a decently engineered little car and massively better than most other component cars of the time - great choice of engine for it you have made

Always used to think they looked like a miniature E Type FHC

[Ambleton]

I love these.

Fir me they're up there with the Ginetta G4.

The ecoboost I think is quite a good option and im sure it'll shuffle along at pace. Although you will upset some purists.

For me the throng of a small carb engine with a straight through pipe is part of the appeal with such a car. The smell, the noise, the sound is part of the character. Would an ecoboost not dampen that down a bit?

I might be tempted to go for the 1.3 Endura single point injection from the earlier KA. This was based on the kent engine iirc. Sure, it wont be as rapid and you'll have to ring its neck, but they're simple and oh so very cheap.

[Justin S]

Was eyeing a red one up recently as a rolling shell with thoughts about engines. I believe someone has put a K series in one and I thought about the bigger 1600 eco boost , but then though of putting it in an Elan plus 2 as my current idea of a build. The Rochdales do look really funky and with a blank canvas and lots of more modern and reliable engines around, I wouldnt bother with any old clanky Ford engines and go more modern. Will watch this avidly for progress.

[OlympicGold]

Ambleton said:

The ecoboost I think is quite a good option and im sure it'll shuffle along at pace. Although you will upset some purists.

For me the throng of a small carb engine with a straight through pipe is part of the appeal with such a car. The smell, the noise, the sound is part of the character. Would an ecoboost not dampen that down a bit?

I was thinking the same for a while and whilst it will be missing some of the rawness, I think it would be an interesting evolution. This car has had a number of engines during its life and I think this is a good modern equivalent - plus we are still sticking with Ford What we loose in carby sounds, we make up for with turbo sounds.

Plus I saw the ecoboost video of Chris Harris in the Formula Ford with 1ltr ecoboost and it sounds fairly meaty with some oompfh!

[bobbo89]

OlympicGold said:

I was thinking the same for a while and whilst it will be missing some of the rawness, I think it would be an interesting evolution. This car has had a number of engines during its life and I think this is a good modern equivalent - plus we are still sticking with Ford What we loose in carby sounds, we make up for with turbo sounds.

Plus I saw the ecoboost video of Chris Harris in the Formula Ford with 1ltr ecoboost and it sounds fairly meaty with some oompfh!

The reliability of a modern engine will make it so much more usable too! The 1.0 Ecoboost is a brilliant little engine too, if I were you I'd hold out for one that came from Ford with 140bhp as standard as from what I understand they came with an uprated head gasket as well as them all being later, better engines with all the niggles ironed out.

They're also good for around 170bhp with a few light mods so scope to push for more power

[Astacus]

I think there are enough of these around with the original features to keep the purists happy. I love the idea of the Ecoboost engine, but 170bhp in a tiny plastic car with a 1960s chassis might need a few careful upgrades

go for it and keep us up to date

[Tigger2050]

I hope this goes well, the Rochdale Olympic is a good base to work on. It has a monocoque construction, one of the earliest, and this should make for a decent handling car given its age if you can get suitable suspension for it.

I always look out for these but so few were made and they just don't seem to crop up at all.



Mitch