Type F

TYPE "F"

Around the same time as the Type C was created (1954/55), the F-type joined the Rochdale range. Resembling a contemporary Ferrari, it offered an intermediate stage between the Mark VI and the C-type, selling at a basic price of £55.

 

Like the Type C it was a one-piece shell with its wheelbase being 7ft 6in. The body style was wasp-waisted and very low, ideal for racing. The customer had to cut his own cockpit, wing edges, doors, bonnet and bootlid, but (unlike the Type C) not the grille.

 

Probably the best known was Alex MacMillan's 'Bristol-Barb', LBU 349, a converted Mark II Cooper Bristol, until it was written off in 1956. Thereafter MacMillan took to the track in an almost identical car, MBU 309, an early Mk1 Elva built in early 1956 with Climax FWA 1098cc engine, which Campbell Blair took over for 1957. Cedric Brierley's giant-killing Victoria Climax, PDK 364, also used the Type F shell, with his own chassis and Climax FWA engine with Norton gearbox. Others were to clothe more traditional chassis, such as pre-war Morris Minor and Ford 8, but as with the Type C the competition from much more complete bodies for these chassis meant that only around 50 Type Fs were sold.

 

Copyright © Malcolm McKay - Early Rochdales Registrar

 

 

Type F

Copyright © Rochdale Owners Club
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