Cunningham C-3 Continental Coupe at SEMA 2017

While the Cunningham C-3 Continental Coupe displayed at the 2017 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show was not a race car the marque has a fascinating racing lineage.   

 

 

Briggs Swift Cunningham II was born in in 1907 in Cincinnati Ohio the scion of an extremely wealthy family which had built its fortune in the pork packing industry, and later expanded into banking, street car lines, railroads, banking, and the start-up funding for the Proctor & Gamble Company.

After two years at Yale University, Briggs left to marry a Standard Oil Company heiress and became what was described as a “gentleman sportsman” who participated in sports car racing and competitive sailing as he won the 1958 America’s Cup as the skipper of the 12-meter yacht Columbia which he co-owned as part of a syndicate.  

Briggs started automobile racing around 1939 with his friends Miles and Samuel Collier, heirs to the publishing and real estate fortune, but he made his big mark in sports car racing in 1950. Briggs bought two new Cadillac Series 61 Coupe de Ville cars to race in the 24 Hours of LeMans in France under the banner of the B. S. Cunningham Company.  Cunningham found long-distance races much more interesting than short races because of the strategy, preparation and endurance required of both man and machine.

One of the Cadillacs remained stock appearing, but the other had its body stripped and was fitted with an aerodynamic aluminum roadster body built by Grumman Aircraft. Upon arrival in France, the French fans fell in love with the Cadillacs - they nicknamed the stock car “Petit Pataud,” (Little Clumsy) and nicknamed the roadster “Le Monstre” (The Monster).  At the finish of the 1950 LeMans 24 hour race, the regular Cadillac driven by the Collier brothers finished tenth and “Le Monstre” driven by Cunningham and Phil Walters (aka Ted Tappett) placed eleventh one lap behind.

The following year, Cunningham returned to LeMans with a team of three purpose-built Cunningham C2-R racers powered by 331-cubic inch Chrysler “Hemi” engines. Walters set the fastest lap speed in practice, but two of the C2-Rs were eliminated by accidents. The third C2-R ran in second place through the 18th hour but shortly after the car was slowed with engine problems and it failed to complete enough laps to be classified at the finish.

In 1952 Briggs established a factory and race shop at 1402 Elizabeth Street in West Palm Beach Florida to produce the Cunningham C-3, a Grand Touring style sports car built on the C2-R chassis design.

 

 

The first two C-3’s were entirely built in the Florida shop, but the B.S. Cunningham Company later sub-contracted the body construction to the Italian coachbuilder Carrozzeria Alfredo Vignale (Vignale), and the company advertised the C-3 as the combination of “American Engineering with Italian Artistry.” Cunningham crews built the running chassis which was shipped to Turin for installation of the body styled by Giovanni Michelotti then shipped back to Florida for final completion.

 

 

Equipped with a 331-cubic inch Chrysler “Hemi” V-8 engine fitted with four Zenith downdraft single-barrel carbs atop a custom intake manifold was connected to a Cadillac three-speed transmission that fed a Chrysler rear end, the C-3 in the coupe body style sold for a base price of $9,000, which by comparison was more than double the price of a 1953 Cadillac Series 62 Coupe de Ville. 

 

 

 

The C-3 roadster body style cost $1,000 less, but with a variety of optional racing parts such as polished connecting rods and high-compression cylinder heads, the price of a Cunningham C-3 could approach $12,000 or even if the customer wanted the car equipped with a Chrysler Fluid-Torque semi-automatic transmission. Even with the high price, reportedly, each C-3 cost the B.S. Cunningham Company more than $15,000 to build.

 

 

The manual transmission 220-horsepower Cunningham C-3 was capable of reaching 60 miles per hour (MPH) from a standing start in less than seven seconds and could hit a top speed of 150 MPH.  Expert opinions on how many C-3’s were built vary – some claim just 25 (the minimum required for homologation to compete at LeMans) while other list the number of car built as high as 30. The Revs Institute documented production at 27- 18 coupes and 9 roadsters. Cunningham customers reportedly included Nelson Rockefeller, duPont heir Charles Moran and Mercury Marine and Chrysler stock car racing team owner Carl Kiekhaefer.

Some Cunningham C-3’s were raced but not as part of the factory-supported effort; those later Cunningham team race cars were identified as the C-4R, C-5R, and C-6R.A Cunningham built car never won the Le Mans race though the team placed fourth in 1952 and third in 1953 and 1954. Briggs was on the cover of the April 26, 1954 issue of Time magazine under the headline: “Road Racer Briggs Cunningham: Horsepower, Endurance, and Sportsmanship.”

 In 1955 at LeMans, the new Cunningham C-6R fitted with a Weber carbureted Offenhauser engine modified to run on gasoline was a disappointment as it posted slower lap time than its predecessor. Never competitive in the race the C-6R engine burnt one of its four pistons in the 19th hour with 202 laps completed.  1955 marked the first and only time that at least one Cunningham entry had failed to finish the 24-hour grind.     

1955 marked the last year for production of the Cunningham marque of passenger cars, as the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations only allowed low-volume automobile manufacturers a period of five years to reach profitability; after that the IRS classified the expenses as a non-deductible hobby.

The Cunningham West Palm Beach shop was closed and forty men lost their jobs but not before SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) President and former Indianapolis 500 riding mechanic Charles Moran won the SCCA with B-Modified championship in 1955 driving at various times the C-4R, the C-4RK (an aerodynamic Kamm-back coupe) and the C-5R.

Briggs Cunningham continued to participate in SCCA amateur racing with cars that included the C-6R refitted with a Jaguar engine, a Jaguar D-type and XK-150, a Maserati Type 60 and a Porsche 550.  In an era when race cars were towed to the track on an open trailer, the Cunningham team was a forerunner of modern racing operations that arrived trackside with a tractor-trailer rig stocked with spare parts and equipment and the cars serviced by a squad of professional mechanics.

Briggs returned to LeMans with a Chevrolet Corvette in 1960 teamed with Kimberly-Clark Paper Company heir Bill Kimberly but failed to finish, then the pair returned in 1961 with a Maserati type 60 Birdcage and finished eighth. In 1962 Briggs now the New England Jaguar distributor teamed with 1959 LeMans winner Roy Salvadori in a Jaguar E-type and finished third, then in his final LeMans appearance in 1963 he teamed with Bob Grossman in a lightweight Jaguar E-type and finished ninth.  

After he married his second wife, Briggs retired from race driving and established the Briggs Cunningham Automotive Museum in Costa Mesa, California which opened February 8 1966. An eponymous car museum was an obvious move as Briggs had kept almost all of the significant cars he had ever owned. Briggs’ car collection included the first Ferrari sold in the United States, a 1948 166 Spyder Corsa sold to him by Ferrari’s United States distributor Luigi Chinetti, and the 1930 Bugatti Type 41 Royale Kellner Coach that Cunningham purchased directly from the Bugatti family in 1950.

The Museum closed on December 31, 1986 and the collection was sold to Cunningham’s life-long friend Miles Collier who moved the collection to Naples Florida; the museum is today known as the Revs Institute.  Briggs Cunningham died at age 96 in Las Vegas on July 2, 2003.

The Cunningham C-3 shown at SEMA 2017 is chassis #5207 the second car built which was used as a media car and was featured in numerous period road test articles finished in an attractive tri-tone combination of dark green, medium green and cream.  The car now finished in matte black is unrestored aside from mechanical restorations to make it safe to drive. The car’s owner, the famed Barn Find book series author Tom Cotter has no intention to restore the car as he says it is “perfect as is.”

To learn more about the fascinating life of Briggs Cunningham visit http://www.briggscunningham.com

All Photos by the author