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Brock Yates’s Eliminator and Novi Special replica fail to sell in Monterey

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The Eliminator
Brock Yates’s Eliminator at Mecum’s Monterey Auction. Photo by Kurt Ernst.

Over his remarkable career, esteemed automotive journalist Brock Yates collected many things, including (reportedly) motel keys, matchbooks, photographs and automobiles. Two of the latter with rather significant ties to Yates’s career recently crossed the block at Mecum’s Monterey auction, both failing to meet their reserve prices.

Of the two, it’s safe to call the Eliminator the most historically significant. The Model T Ford racer, originally constructed by Californian Jay Chamberlain for short track racing, clawed its way to (relative) fame in the hands of owner Frank “Duffy” Livingstone. Fitted with a Ford flathead V-8, the car took its name from the Potvin camshaft fitted by engine builder Tim Timmerman. Ensuring that The Eliminator could stop as well as go, a set of Bendix aircraft brakes were fitted, and the car received its first 15 minutes of fame in a 1953 Hot Rod magazine article entitled, “How to Build a Sports Car.”

The Eliminator
The dash displays stickers from the car’s racing history. Photo by Kurt Ernst.

By 1956, the flathead V-8 was no longer a competitive race engine, so Timmerman built up a 265-cu.in. Chevrolet V-8 for the car. Later, the original La Salle three-speed transmission was pulled, replaced by a Borg-Warner T-10 four-speed, and suddenly the package was fast enough to be dangerous in C Class competition. Just how competitive The Eliminator had become was proven in 1959, when at one event it qualified 19th (and finished 11th) out of 57 cars, including Ferraris, Maseratis and Porsches driven by the likes of Carroll Shelby and Dan Gurney.

Shortly afterward, Livingstone lost interest in the car, parking it in his shop for some two decades before it was sold. Though the ownership path is murky, the car eventually found its way into Yates’s collection, and it was soon sent to Pete Chapouris at California’s So-Cal Speed Shop for refurbishment. Chapouris brought The Eliminator up to modern safety standards, but took care to preserve the car’s patina wherever possible; he left the exterior paint untouched and left many of the dents from the car’s serious racing days intact.

The Eliminator
Bidding reached $140,000, but failed to meet reserve. Photo by Kurt Ernst.

Upon completion, Yates raced the car for four seasons in various vintage events, but its crowning achievement likely came in August of 2003. That year, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance included a class honoring the hot rod, and The Eliminator received an invitation to participate alongside the likes of Max Balchowsky’s Old Yeller II,  the 1947 Baldwin Payne Mercury and the HWM Chevrolet Stovebolt Special. On hand for the ceremonies, in addition to owner Yates, were Livingstone and The Eliminator’s most recent restorer, Barry Brown, whose Riter Vintage Car Care shop in East Rochester, New York, refreshed the car after four seasons of vintage racing.

Like a warthog displayed at an American Kennel Club purebred event, The Eliminator seemed out of place on the Pebble Beach field, and Yates recounted his impression of the event in a piece penned for the December 2003 Car and Driver, entitled “Barbarians on the Grass.” Looking at the car with contempt and distaste, a woman reportedly said to original restorer Chapouris, “This thing is ugly. The paint is faded. There are dents. Don’t any of you people know how to restore cars?”

The Eliminator
At Pebble Beach in 2003 , Yates sat on the car’s tail for the ride to the judging stand. Photo by Kurt Ernst.

When Chapouris pointed out the importance of the car’s originality, the visitor was undeterred, stating that, “Our house is original. One hundred years old. But we paint it every three years,” before storming off in a huff. Later, when the category finalists were announced, the Stovebolt Special, the Baldwin Payne Mercury and The Eliminator were called before the judges’ stand, and it was The Eliminator that was picked for the category win. The car may still have been a warthog among purebreds, but on that day it was a very proud warthog.

1956 Kurtis Kraft 500F Novi Replica
1956 Kurtis Kraft 500F Novi Replica. Photo courtesy Mecum Auctions.

The 1956 Kurtis-Kraft 500F Novi Replica, on the other hand, is very much a race car that celebrates the art of the automobile. Built by engineer, machinist and fabricator Gary Babineau, in collaboration with Brock Yates, the Novi Replica was meant as a tribute to “the fastest car never to win the Indy 500,” as the Novi racers are often referred to. Campaigned in various forms (including both front-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive versions) from 1941 through 1966, Novi-engined cars were renowned for the distinctive shriek of their gear-driven superchargers, as well as for the impressive power the engines put out. Some would say the Novi cars were cursed as well, as drivers Ralph Hepburn and Chet Miller were killed in crashes of Novi-powered cars.

The Novi supercharged V-8 engine was designed by Bud Winfield and Leo Goossen and constructed by legendary builder Fred Offenhauser. At its debut (as a “Winfield”) in the 1941 Indianapolis 500, the engine produced more than 450 horsepower, which was an impressive number for the day. By the end of its life, in 1966 (then licensed by team owner Andy Granatelli), the Novi engine was good for 837 horsepower. Ironically, the Brock Yates Novi Replica uses a Maserati engine instead of a Novi, as surviving examples have climbed exponentially in price. In 2009, when Babineau assembled the Novi Replica, Yates estimated that an authentic Novi engine would have added $250,000 to the car’s build cost, making the use of a normally aspirated 600hp Maserati overhead-cam V-8 understandable.

Once Babineau’s astonishing work was finished, the Novi Replica debuted at the 2009 Greenwich Concours d’Elegance in Connecticut, where the car picked up the “Great Race Award.” A vintage race event at Watkins Glen followed, once the SVRA approved the car for competition. In what may have been the most fitting tribute to the Novi and its early drivers, Andy Hurtubise, son of original Novi racer Jim Hurtubise, lapped the historic circuit wearing a replica of his father’s driving suit. As Yates later penned in Vintage Motorsport, “It was a memorable day for everyone involved. All along it’s been about the Novi, but I realized as I watched Andy drive down the straightaway that it is also about the people and the history behind the car… keeping that alive, and the connections that we all have to this sport is what we can memorialize.”

1956 Kurtis Kraft 500F Novi Replica
A normally aspirated Maserati V-8 was chosen for its cost effectiveness. Photo courtesy Mecum Auctions.

Bidding on The Eliminator rose to $140,000 before stalling, but that wasn’t enough to top the car’s reserve price (and likely would have represented the lowest price ever paid for a Pebble Beach class winner) or meet the pre-auction estimate of $175,000 to $200,000. Bidding on the Novi replica reached $75,000, and this number also failed to meet the car’s reserve.

For more results from Mecum’s 2013 Monterey auction, visit Mecum.com.


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