The Eliminator

The small classified ad in the Nov. '96 issue of Hemmings Motor News triggered serious memories. The Eliminator was for sale! It was a hot road-racing car I had seen in competition during my time in the Navy at Montgomery Field outside San Diego in the summer of 1956.

I called the number in the ad and reached Pat Ganahl, the well-known hot rod journalist and historian who was brokering the car for an attorney friend named Tom Murphy in Phoenix. According to Pat, the car was partially restored but essentially original and was housed in a storage shed in Anaheim. A deal was struck almost instantly. Not having laid eyes on the car in over 40 years, but instinctively feeling the project made sense, I contacted famed hot rod builder Pete Chapouris and the car was moved to his elaborate Pomona facility (SO-CAL Speed Shop).

Knowing Pete's reputation, I was comfortable dealing with the project by long-distance telephone calls during the six months it took to do the restoration. Chapouris assigned Pete Eastwood, one of the finest fabricators in the business, to honcho the job; the plan was to enter the car in the prestigious Monterey Historic Automobile Races at Laguna Seca in August 1997.While Eastwood and Chapouris labored over the car, concentrating on the rear suspension that had been dismantled sometime in the car's murky past, Barry Bowen, who was at the time running the Summit engine shop in Akron, Ohio, put together a small-block Chevy with an original Edelbrock manifold carrying three Stromberg 97s of the type originally used by the creator of the car, Frank "Duffy" Livingstone.

Duffy, who left his Los Angeles haunts to live with his second wife, Dee Dee, in Grants Pass, Oregon, is a legend in kart racing. The International Karting Federation's "Duffy" Trophy is one of the most honored in the sport.Livingstone turned out to be a great friend, supplying all manner of data and materials to Eastwood and Chapouris and sharing stories about his six-year campaign with the Eliminator from 1954-1960.

The car started life in 1950 in the Sherman Oaks garage of hot rodder Jay Chamberlain, who intended to compete in the California Roadster Association (CRA) short-track series. The car used a '24 Ford T-bucket body mounted on a late-'20s Ford frame and running gear. Chamberlain commissioned the great Indy car body builder, Emil Diedt--who later built the Scarab bodies for Lance Reventlow--to hammer out a stunning steel nose for the car. But before the project was completed, the CRA allowed tubular chassis, which made the T-bucket obsolete. Chamberlain--who would go on to import Lotus cars in California and eventually to run a few Grand Prix races in Europe--then sold the rolling chassis to his friend Livingstone, a long-time hot rodder who was running a muffler shop in Pasadena near Don Blair's well-known speed shop.

Livingstone had been a regular on the dry lakes with a Caddy V-12-powered roadster, but started to show interest in the road racing that was thriving in Southern California. He and partner Paul Parker decided to transform the Chamberlain project into a sports car using a Ford Flathead owned by Parker and modified by engine builder Tim Timmerman.

Hooked to a Cadillac three-speed and carrying Bendix aircraft-style front brakes, the car was dubbed the Eliminator, based on a Potvin camshaft employed by Timmerman.

The car made its first appearance in print in the June '53 issue of Hot Rod. In a story titled "Building a Hot Rod Sports Car," by W.G. "Racer" Brown, the construction of the car by Duffy, his partner in Duff and Roy's Muffler Shop, Roy Desbrow, and Paul Parker, was told in detail. Other stories on the car also appeared in Hot Rod and other magazines during the '50s.

In 1954-1955 the car performed adequately, considering that its ancient Flathead was hopelessly outclassed against the big OHV V-8s and overhead camshaft imported engines appearing in Cal Club and SCCA competitions.In 1956, as Livingstone's muffler business thrived, he purchased a 265ci Chevrolet small-block. Timmerman again built up the engine and a year later it was hooked to a new Borg-Warner T-10 four-speed. With this the Eliminator began to run competitively against the best sports cars in the world. With cycle fenders mounted and carrying a spare tire, Duffy competed the car in C-modified class. He also removed the fenders on occasion and ran the car in the Formula Libre class against open-wheel single seaters. The car's high point came in 1959 at the Los Angeles "Herald Examiner" USAC Professional race at the Pomona fairgrounds. Most of the best sports cars and drivers in the nation were on hand, including the likes of Carroll Shelby, Ken Miles, Dan Gurney, Chuck Daigh, etc., in top-flight Ferraris, Maseratis, and Porsches. The ancient T-bucket, as usual, looked out of place. The number 184 (favored by Livingstone--based on his much-decorated combat record as a flight engineer) caused considerable scorn among the sports car set. "Why would they let that piece of junk run with our cars?" asked one spectator in the Pomona pits prior to the race.

Duffy answered by qualifying the Eliminator--now called the "Tihsepa Mark II" (spell that backwards)--in 19th place among the potent 57-car field. During the race he got as high as eight before he over-heated and slowed to an 11th place finish.

By then Duffy Livingstone was gaining fame in the booming world of karting. He had built the second-ever kart after seeing founder Art Ingels' prototype at the Kurtis-Kraft shop in Glendale in 1956. Duffy then created the Go Kart Company in Azusa and established himself as one of the greatest drivers in the history of the sport.

By 1960 the karting business was booming. The aged Eliminator, with its '20s chassis technology, was hopelessly obsolete. It was placed in the back of the Go Kart factory and ultimately sold.

The old car spent the next 20 years stored in a series of race shops where little was done in terms of restoration. Thankfully, most of the interval was spent in Tucson, Arizona, where the dry climate preserved the paint, bodywork, and running gear. When Tom Murphy decided to sell the car in 1996, I was able to purchase it and turn it over to Chapouris & Co.

At one point Pete called to ask what I wanted to do with the aged, scuffed body. To repaint or leave original was his question. "Leave it alone. You can't restore 'original,'" I said. "Thank goodness," Pete replied and went back to preserving the incredible old machine.

With Reno, Nevada, race shop operator and pro driver Bert Skidmore at the wheel for the car's debut at the Monterey Historic Automobile Races in August 1997, the car created a mild sensation. Starting scratch in a 21-car field after little practice, Skidmore tore through the field of Ferraris, Maseratis, and other exotics. Before the 10-lap sprint was over, he had charged into eighth place and was catching the leaders. The giant crowd followed his rush to the front with waves of cheers and helped it to win the Chopard Award for best performance in the race.

Back East in Barry Brown's Riter Restoration shop in East Rochester, New York, the car was prepared for serious vintage competition. Braided steel brake lines were installed, a stiffer rollbar was built, and a more suitable racing seat replaced the surplus WWII aircraft bucket that Duffy had used. But left in place were such original items as the Japanese army helmet sliced in half to serve as front brake ducts and the faded USAC and NHRA decals that dated to the mid-'50s.

Over the next four years, Skidmore and other drivers, Tom Reece and Walt Bohren, drove the car with great success in races at Watkins Glen, Mid-Ohio, and Lime Rock, as well as back at Laguna Seca in 2001 where it ran with the leaders and finished a strong fourth. The car also ran in a dirt track revival race in Upstate New York and appeared at several car shows--it even made an award-winning effort at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance in 1991. (Its presence there will be long remembered, as it spun its rear wheels and splattered mud all over a woman in a white dress at the trophy presentation.)After being featured in Barry Meguiar's Car Crazy television show, being the subject of an upcoming book from Motorbooks International titled Hot Rod: The Resurrection of a Legend, and treated in Car and Driver and other magazines, the car was retired from competition.

Its career reached another milestone in August 2003 when it won a Blue Ribbon for first in its class among the road racing hot rods invited to the world-famous Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. With Barry Brown driving (who had completed a second totally accurate mid-'50s restoration of the Eliminator), Duffy in the passenger seat, and me riding shotgun on the trunk, the old car took its place among the most honored cars in the world.Not bad for a ratty old hot rod whose second life is just beginning.