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Rochdale 1959-1973 - original plastic sports cars from England

Name: Rochdale Olympic 1965
Brand: Rochdale

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Created in 2010

Text:

Roger Gloor

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Rochdale Olympic - From the English road straight to the 1961 Geneva Motor Show

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Summary

There were around 10,000 car brands and designers - most of them have disappeared. One of these vanished brands is Rochdale, which produced plastic sports cars in England between 1954 and 1968/1973. Around 1,000 finished and kit vehicles left the company in Rochdale. More about this in the detailed article ...

Estimated reading time: 3min

Preview (beginning of the article)

An episode from the Rallye des Alpes for vintage sports cars in 1992 is symptomatic of the enthusiasm for tinkering among buyers of English car kits: Instead of enjoying a gala dinner at the stage finish in Crans-Montana after a grueling pass chase, the driver and navigator of the competing Rochdale Olympic set about replacing the defective cylinder head gasket in the hotel parking lot ... Rochdale Motor Panels & Engineering Ltd. in Rochdale, north of Manchester, built its racing bodies, which were supplied in kit form, out of plastic from 1954. The road-going Riviera convertible was produced from 1959 to 1961. At the same time, the 2+2-seater Olympic coupé, designed by Richard Parker, was created, with a perfectly shaped 2+2-seater fastback body made of self-supporting plastic shells. This monocoque design had only previously been used for road vehicles with the Lotus Elite, which was built from 1957 onwards.

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