The caption on the April 26, 1954 cover of TIME magazine said it all: Road Racer Briggs Cunningham: Horsepower, endurance, sportsmanship. He was America’s Ambassador-at-Large.
The man, who skippered the 12-meter Columbia in 1958 to win the America’s Cup, left an even bigger imprint on enthusiast automotive history. Briggs Cunningham was a legendary racer, team owner and GT and racecar, above, builder and, in 1950 took Cadillac(s) to Le Mans. And, both cars finished the grueling 24-hour enduro. His accomplishments on racetracks and as a car builder are legendary.
Before Cunningham’s serious involvement with sports racers and some of the world’s most exotic marques, he had an affinity for hot-rodded domestic cars. One of his favorites was the Fordillac, built by Bill “Willie” Frick” at Bill Frick Motors on Sunrise Highway, Rockville Centre, NY. Frick custom built boxy 1950 Fords powered by Cadillac’s new 331-inch, four-barrel OHV engines. In 1953 Willie Frick started producing Studillacs, Studebaker's stylish Starlight/Starliner coupes, powered by powerful 210-horsepower Cadillac engines.
An authorized Allard dealer and U.S. distributor of Kieft sports car, he had turned engine swapping into an art form and Cunningham had to have one of his Cadillac-powered Specials. Stock on the outside, the Fordillac had Cadillac power under the hood as well as chassis/suspension updates.
Briggs Cunningham purchased one of Frick’s early 1950 Fordillacs. He drove it on the street for daily transportation and raced it up and down the East Coast At Daytona on February 2, 1950, Cunningham was clocked at almost 107 mph. The following month he ran the Cadillac-engined Ford “shoebox” in competitive events at the Boca Raton Airbase (FL). He took a 5th Overall on the Gymkhana course and a 9th Overall in the handicap race. These events were for sports cars!
In 1950, Cunningham hired Frick to prepare two new Series 61 Cadillacs for the 24-hour race at Le Mans. Frick’s mildly-tweaked two-door hardtop, above, finished 10th, while the crudely-streamlined coupe nicknamed “Le Monstre” (The Monster) by the French press, placed 11th.
One year later Cunningham launched his own nameplate and started producing C-1 and C-2R race and C-3 road cars at his facility in West Palm Beach, FL. His Michelotti-styled, Chrysler-Hemi-engined C-Series Cunningham racers, below, were stunning, powerful and expensive. Between 1951 and 1955, B.S. Cunningham Co. also produced 27 Vignale-bodied C-3s (18 coupes, 9 convertibles) priced at $10,000-$11,000.
During Briggs Cunningham’s racing career he was associated with an incredibly array of exotic, successful nameplates. As a driver and team owner his name has been linked to Aston Martin, Corvette, Ferrari, Jaguar, Maserati and Porsche. His teams managed by Alfred Momo were consistent winners.
In 1960 he returned to Le Mans with another American nameplate, Corvette. Driven by John Fitch and Bob Grossman, the fuel-injected ’60 Corvette won the GT class and finished 8th Overall. The Cunningham #3 Corvette has been restored and is in Lance Miller’s collection in Carlisle, PA. It celebrated its 50th anniversary, above, at Le Mans in 2010, was driven again by 92-year-old John Fitch and is the subject of an excellent documentary, The Quest, by Michael Brown.
Briggs Cunningham passed away in 2003 at age 96.
For more about Briggs Cunningham, please visit Mike Gulett’s My Car Quest Blog, http://mycarquest.blogspot.com/2011/06/briggs-cunningham-great-american.html
Check out details about Cunningham’s 1950 Cadillac assault at Le Mans and his legendary C4-R,
http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z11076/Cadillac-Series-62-DeVille-LeMans-Coupe.aspx
http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z9241/Cunningham-C4-R.aspx
For more information about Michael Brown’s Le Mans Corvette documentary, The Quest, please visit, http://questdocumentary.com/
Scott Teeters has done wonderful #3 Cunningham Le Mans Corvette Art Prints as part of his historical Illustrated Corvette Series, above, http://www.illustratedcorvetteseries.com/1960_Corvettes.html