| Ron Cummings offered
this info on the "Pink Elephants":
"The Pink Elephant at
Paramount Ranch is the Pink Elephant I, a Devin body on a stock MG TD Mk
II that Chaffee built and raced. He previously raced the production TD
before going modified. The Pink Elephant I raced for many years in the
CalClub. Chaffee was a Devin dealer.
The Pink Elephant II,
by the way, was built using an old Miller two man Indy frame. I think Chaffee
sold the Miller parts and put the Chevrolet motor into III.
The Pink Elephant III
was built on the Healey chassis about 1960-61. I seem to remember it first
racing with the Healey motor, later with the Chevrolet. I looked
at the car at Chris' lately and it is mostly a Healey chassis.
I forgot to mention the
Pink Elephant IV. It was a Devin body on a Triumph chassis. The car ran
the Triumph motor. I seem to remember the car being painted more of a red
color rather than the typical Chaffee pink. After one or two races the
car was entered simply as a Devin-Triumph and lost its Pink Elephant name.
I think Chaffee built the car for one of his foreign car garage, in Ontario
California, customers".
More from Ron:
The Pink Elephant III
finished 13th at the Stardust,
Las Vegas, USRRC race ahead of Ol' Yaller IX. I kid you not!!
(9-27-11)
From Tom Mitchell:
"In 1959 and 1960 My uncle
Jim Mitchell lived in Ontario, and was a good friend of Jim Chaffee
and his wife Dote. My uncle raced a white Austin Healey
100 ( #150) At several events (i.e. Dec 5-6 1959) my uncle and Jim would
team together. My brother and I (I was 12 and my brother was
16) helped as pit crew … On one occasion I took the chalk board out to
track side to let him know his lap speed and position. Today that
is still one of the great experiences of my life (and I’m now 64).
I love the information and the pictures of the car (and all of the other
cars as well) I think the site is really terrific! If possible I
would like to see the car again.. I have a couple of restored cars
as well, a 1964 type IV AH Sprite and a 1963 Chev. Nova II SS (restored)." |