1953 Cunningham C3

Briggs Swift Cunningham was the son of a wealthy Cincinnati financier and heir to the Swift meatpacking fortune. His career began in yacht racing at Yale in the 1920s, which eventually led to international fame by captaining the Columbia to victory in the 1958 America's Cup. During the 1930s, he engaged in international racing with his college friends Miles and Samuel Collier, who founded the Automobile Racing Club of America (later renamed the Sports Car Club of America, SCCA, in 1944).

After World War II, Cunningham set his sights on winning the 24 Hours, perhaps the world's most prestigious race. His 1950 attempt at victory was with two Cadillac Coupe de Villes with one remaining nearly stock while the other was heavily modified. Both cars finished the race and finished in respectable 10th and 11th positions. This early loss fueled Briggs' desire for victory, which culminated in the creation of his C-3 Cunningham automobile.

The first prototype built by the B.S. Cunningham Company of West Palm Beach was the Cunningham C-1 Roadster of 1951, powered by a Cadillac V8 engine. The C-1 was followed by a racing version, the Chrysler engined C-2R Roadster. It featured Cadillac drum brakes, LaSalle's 3-speed transmission, Chrysler's worm-and-sector steering, and Oriflow shock absorbers provided by Chrysler. The aluminum body built atop a tubular ladder chassis was built by Bill Frick and Phil Walters. The top speed of the C-2R was in the neighborhood of 154 mph.

The Cunningham C-2R represented Brigg's first serious assault on winning the Le Mans 24 Hour race. Unfortunately, two of the three cars entered at Le Mans in 1951 crashed, while the remaining C-2R finished 18th place after being slowed by mechanical issues late in the race.

Motoring pundits in Europe viewed the C-2 and C-2R as being too heavy and too big for Le Mans. Taking those insights to heart, Cunningham's next LeMans entries were much reduced, lightened by nearly a thousand pounds and shortened by sixteen inches. The improved Chrysler Hemi V8 offered even more horsepower.

For the 1952 Le Mans race, Cunningham entered two C-4R roadsters and a C-4RK coupe with truncated rear bodywork. Briggs paired himself with Bill Spear, an amateur driver on the American sports car circuit. John Fitch, who had become the SCCA's first national champion in 1951, was paired with George Rice, a talented Eastern midget car driver. The coupe was driven by Phil Walters and Duane Carter. During practice, the Chrysler-designed Alfin brake drums began to crack their liners. Since the Cunningham team did not have spares, their cars had to be driven carefully during the race.

By midnight, only the roadster driven by Cunningham/Spears remained. Cunningham drove for nearly 20 of the 24 hours, determined to bring a Cuningham-built vehicle across the line. By the end of the race, the Cunningham roadster was finished in 4th place.

A single C-5R was raced at LeMans in 1953 and finished 3rd overall, an accomplishment the team repeated a year later. The final B.S. Cunningham company car to race at LeMans was in 1955 with the C-6R which retired on lap 202. Cunningham and his team would continue to race at LemNas until 1963, using modified versions of his own design, along with Corvettes, Maseratis, Jaguars, and Listers.

The Cunningham C-3
Homologation rules for Le Mans competition in 1952 specified that competitors could race production vehicles. The definition of 'production' was set at a minimum of 25 examples produced in order to be eligible to race. The Cunningham C-3 street car was then introduced in November 1951.

Cunningham's production car was the C-3, a road-going version of his racing car. Although producing vehicles in that quantity was a daunting task, Cunningham hoped that it would actually help to offset the astronomical expenses being incurred by his racing team.

Italian coachbuilder Alfredo Vignale was tasked with helping Cunningham build the coupe and cabriolet bodies to designs created by Giovanni Michelotti. Built atop a modified racing chassis, the C-3 was motivated by Chrysler Hemi V8 overhead valve engines fitted with four Zenith single-barrel carburetors. Displacing 392 cubic inches, the engine provided approximately 350 horsepower. The engines were paired with a Cadillac three-speed manual transmission or Chrysler PowerFlite gearbox, with four-wheel hydraulic brakes keeping the 107-inch wheelbase chassis in the driver's control. The suspension used an independent setup with coil springs at the front and a live axle setup in the rear with coil springs. Prices ranged from $8,000 to $12,000 when new with some of the early customers, including the Du Pont and Rockefeller family.

A total of eighteen coupes and nine cabriolets were eventually built with coachwork by Vignale (some sources state twenty coupes and five cabriolets). Cunningham's West Palm Beach factory had built at least one C2 body on a C-3 chassis before production was shifted to Vignale in Turin, where a further 25 examples were built. Cunningham's shop could build a chassis every week, however, it took Vignale nearly two months to complete the rest of the car. Just 25 Cunningham C-3 models were produced and they were the only Cunningham vehicle ever built for the public. Most of those 25 vehicles wore two-tone color combinations.

In 1954, Briggs Cunningham was featured on the cover of Time magazine with three of his Cunningham racing cars, as the embodiment of 'Horsepower, Endurance, Sportsmanship.'

by Daniel Vaughan | Apr 2022