| The Donna Mae Mims "Think Pink" Sprite |
| ** Click on any image thumbnail to enlarge ** |
The Automotive Archeologists, Ltd.
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The Donna Mae Mims Think Pink Sprite
Black and white period snapshots from Donna Mae's collection
| Jeff Moore and Donna Mae at the Yenko 40th Reunion, July 2006, Nelson Ledges |
| The Sprite as last raced in 1987, by John Francis photos taken in 2006 |
| Restoration begins December 2007 |
| The first proof of the heritage of the car PINK PAINT |
| Stripped to the bare tub, flared rear quarters cut off, time for some hammer and dolly time and a little rust repair. Most of the tub is very solid, of course, its been a race car since it was a year or two old, not much street use |
| The story of the Donna Mae Mims "Think Pink" Sprite is a very interesting one. Not only was it Donna Mae's 1963 SCCA H-Production National Championship car. It also was the very first time the SCCA had crowned a female national champ. But that's not all. The original owner of the car was none other than Jonas Salk, inventor of the Salk vaccine for Polio. He used to drive the car around the University of Pittsburgh campus. Donna Mae bought the car from Bill Wissel who had already prepared it for competition. After Donna Mae won HP in '63 she decided to move up to an MGB and sold the car to Ross Harris. Ross raced the car until he sold it in 1971 to John Francis. John raced the car in SCCA H-Production competition until 1987. John finally sold the car on eBay in 2004 to my friend Curtis Wood. I love Bugeyes (I have had a couple) and I really didn't need it but I really wanted it so we cut a deal. I had plans to restore the car someday and had it stored in the back of my shop. After reading the Victory Lane Magazine Oct. '07 issue I realized that 2008 was of the Austin Healey Sprite. So I put my Hot Rod restoration project in the back room where the Sprite was parked and began to tear the Sprite apart. The next thing I did was to find some proof that it was actually Donna Mae's old car. I had scratched through the multiple layers of paint, but couldn't really see any pink. Most of the car had been sanded down to the bare metal at one time. The one area that looked like it hadn't been disturbed was the license plate light plinth screwed to the back of the car from the inside. Nobody ever wanted to crawl all the way into the back of the car to unscrew it since the factory installed it. So I crawled in and sure enough, factory Old English White with pink around the edge. After some careful sanding the pink could be easily seen. Ok, now it was time to write to Donna Mae and send her some photos of the proof (PINK PAINT). Donna wasn't too sure that this was her car when I talked to her about it at the 40th Yenko Reunion because she had been told that Ross Harris had totaled it in a race. I talked to Randy Canfield at the 2006 SCCA Runoffs at Heartland Park Topeka about Ross and the car. Randy said that he remembered that Ross had wrecked it, but he then repaired it. The right front corner has taken a pretty good hit at one time. A couple of weeks after I wrote Donna Mae I received a letter from her with snapshots and a "So now you have it! Whee!" Since then I have found what we think is '56 Pontiac Camellia Pink all over the place. It still even has its original doors! Pretty good for a car that was raced for 26 years. Now the plan is to have it ready for the June 27-29 2008 SVRA race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course celebrating the Austin Healey Sprite and reunite the little Sprite with Donna Mae. Stay tuned |
Last updated June 20, 2013
| Location of the original roll hoop |
| The original Yenko fiberglass seat was still installed in the car |
| It took a lot of work to get the inner fender panel this straight |
| This was a great find when my friend John Gresham removed the convertible top hooks to reveal a wonderful sample of Camellia Pink |
| Due to time and the fact that I don't want to undo 26 years worth of development, the car is going to retain its 1987 SCCA suspension |
| The new roll bar replicates the original one. There were very large access holes from the previous bar installation that I repaired. |
Color picture supplied by Don Baker
Established 1989
