Elva Mk 3, 4 and 5

[begbier]

Further to posts #25, #29 and #31, some new information recently came to light suggesting that the finder and restorer of my Elva-Climax MkIV may have got themselves a bit confused.

To explain, sometime in the late 1980s Charles Crail discovered my car, chassis 100/74, as a classic barn find in rural California. He already owned the remains of a second Elva MkIV (100/77L) and in 1990 did a deal with another Californian car restorer - Franklin “Rudy” Rudolph - trading both cars in exchange for an Elva Formula Junior. Rudy then went on to restore the more complete of the two cars - chassis 100/74 - and sold the scant remains of 100/77L to a well-known Elva collector.

Crail told Rudy that the previous owner said that chassis 100/74, had been raced by William T. “Bunny” Ribbs in the 1962 race season and, indeed, period photos exist showing Ribbs driving a MkIV at various tracks in California during that time. However, some new information obtained recently indicates that Bunny’s car was almost certainly chassis number 100/77L and not 100/74.

This begs the question as to the period race history of 100/74, a very early chassis number in the run of Mark IVs, and requires a bit more detective work. That work is ongoing but, with a maximum of around 30 Elva Mk IVs having been built, by eliminating known cars, closely examining period race results and taking account of geography, the prime candidates are the cars raced in 1958/1959 by:

John D. Peters (North Hollywood, CA)
- raced initially in UK (1958/59) and then California (1959)
- covered in the János Wimpffen book

A.S ‘Curley’ Brayer (Phoenix, AZ)
- Arizona Elva dealer
- 1959 Jerome hillclimb and SCCA El Paso, Del Mar, Santa Barbara

William A. Parham Jr. (Fort Worth, TX)
- ran at December 1959 Nassau races and SCCA Galveston (1960)
- also raced a Courier

Any information, additive or corrective, would be warmly appreciated.