Briggs Cunningham’s Quest for Le Mans Glory

“By building and sailing his own ships, and building and racing his own cars, he epitomized the definition of the American Sportsman.” – Sam Posey

If you have studied Corvette history, you know that Briggs Cunningham is remembered for one race: the 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans. But that achievement represented only a single chapter in the life of one of America’s greatest sportsmen.

Before Corvette’s first Le Mans class victory, Cunningham had already spent two decades racing and winning yacht championships. Cunningham flew patrol aircraft during World War II. He designed and had built his own race cars, pursuing his dream of winning Le Mans. Cunningham wanted this accomplishment in an American car with an American team.

With some backdoor help from Zora Arkus Duntov, Cunningham arrived at Le Mans with three fuel-injected Corvettes equipped with every competition part Chevrolet could discreetly provide. The race was a hard slog, same as today, only with poorer personal accommodations. But the effort paid off. Corvettes #1 and #2 dropped out, but #3, with John Fitch driving, finished first in class and eighth overall. (A Ferrari 250 TR won 1st overall.)

Duntov was thrilled

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Corvette had finally earned a class victory at Le Mans. Cunningham appreciated the accomplishment, but his goal had always been larger. He wanted an overall victory. That’s called “Winning Le Mans”! After the race, Cunningham returned the cars. All of the racing hardware was removed and replaced with stock 1960 283 Fuelie parts. The cars were then sold as “Used Cars”, with buyers and future owners never knowing that their car once raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1960.

Briggs “Swift” Cunningham’s racing career lasted 18 years, from the 1948 Watkins Glen Grand Prix through the 1966 Sebring 12 Hours. RacingSportsCars lists 233 result entries under his name, while the broader Cunningham team race record runs to more than 800 entries. Depending on whether one counts only Briggs as the driver or the entire Cunningham team, the win totals vary sharply. Of all of his races, he only raced a Corvette once.

Corvette Generational History

Our 1953–1962 C1 Corvette Review: Engineering, Styling, Sales, and Legacy Story is now available.

The Pratt & Miller-built Corvette Z06 GT3.R teams are battling this weekend at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Let’s take a deep dive into the Life and Times of Briggs Swift Cunningham’s American Sportsman career.

America has been a nation of sportsmen for over 150 years

We love sports and invented professional sports. In the beginning, sports were simply “competitively playing games”. In the early days of baseball, football, basketball, and boxing, it was a big deal when a participant was paid for playing. Today, compensation for professional sports players is at levels never dreamed of at the beginning of organized sports.

Men have been racing horses and boats for centuries, and started racing cars not long after the first car was built. But unlike sports that only require a ball and some simple protective gear, horses, boats, and cars can cost a lot of sweat, busted knuckles, and money. Racing cars attracted three kinds of guys: the garage mechanics, small local businessmen, and wealthy men. Briggs Swift Cunningham was at the upper level of the rich “Playboy” class.

Meet Briggs Cunningham’s Family

First, let’s sketch out the family Briggs was born into. Briggs Swift Cunningham was born on January 19, 1907, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His grandfather built a fortune in Mississippi River shipping before expanding into the meat-packing business with his son. Briggs Swift Cunningham, Sr., Briggs’ father, was a partner in the investment banking firm Evans, Lippincott & Cunningham. Briggs Swift Cunningham Sr. founded Citizens National Bank, served as a director of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and helped finance Procter & Gamble. William Cooper Proctor was Briggs Jr’s godfather.

Briggs’ father died in 1912 when Briggs Jr. was only five years old. His father’s estate was set up so that his heirs would not gain full control of their inheritance until age 40. Regardless, they all lived very well in America’s pre-income tax days.

Young Briggs had an interesting favorite uncle, Dr. Ashton Heyl, a man who had served with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. Uncle Ashton also liked fast cars and owned a sleeper Dodge Touring car powered by a Hispano-Suiza aircraft engine! Briggs’ uncle would often do a little street racing with his nephew in the passenger seat. This was arguably Briggs’ first taste of speed and power.

Yale, Connections, and Marriage

Briggs was an excellent student, attending the Groton School and then Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Upon graduation, Briggs attended Yale University, where he became friends with the son of Chrysler President K.T. Keller. Briggs lived in a world of connections. Years later, when he was building his own race cars, his Yale friend connection helped Briggs get one of Chrysler’s new Fire Power Hemi engines. While attending Yale, he became an excellent golfer, tennis player, and, as part of Yale’s Olympic Bobsled Team, Briggs was the bobsled brakeman. Being “in competition” was in Briggs’ DNA.

Briggs very much enjoyed his college days. But at the mature age of twenty-two, it was time to be a married man. Briggs’ bride was Lucie Bedford, the granddaughter of E.T. Bedford, one of the co-founders of Standard Oil. People in high society always married within their social status. This was the world of Briggs Swift Cunningham, a world of connections that can open doors and opportunities.

The newlyweds spent an extended honeymoon touring Europe. Here’s a great example of Briggs’ connections. While enjoying European high society, three-time European Drivers’ Championship (equivalent to today’s Formula 1) racer Rudolph Caracciola personally delivered a brand-new Mercedes-Benz SS to Briggs. The exotic new car helped Briggs score a concours show car award.

Briggs’ first taste of sports car racing, but has to settle for yacht racing

While on his honeymoon, Briggs attended the 1930 Monaco Grand Prix race, his first major road racing event. Briggs was good friends with the Collier Brothers, Miles and Sam, and had fun with their European sports cars. Another contemporary of Briggs’ crowd was the Collier Brothers, automotive illustrator friend and future chief Corvette designer, Bill Mitchell. The newlyweds returned home after a whirlwind European honeymoon and settled along Long Island Sound.

Briggs gravitated toward competition. If it moved fast and kept score, he wanted to master it. Before auto racing, that passion focused on custom-built racing yachts. Auto racing back then was more of a daredevil sport, and as its popularity grew, drivers were being killed weekly. “Racing cars” was for hooligans! Family accounts suggest that Briggs’ mother disliked auto racing, and it was her wish that he not indulge until after her death.

Racing yachts was acceptable, so that’s what Briggs did until the outbreak of World War II

Briggs’ passion for competition on the water went back to when he was seventeen years old and joined the Pequot Yacht Club so that he could race Star Class sailboats. Years later, he said that it was his wife, Lucie, who really taught him how to sail. Two of Briggs’ custom-built sailboats were named “Lucie”.

During the decade that Briggs competed on the water, he won six world titles in the six-meter yacht class. Even during his racing time in the 1950s, Briggs was part of a group of investors that commissioned a twelve-meter sloop, the “Columbia,” to enter into the first post-war America’s Cup race in 1958. The syndicate originally selected Cornelius “Corny” Shields as skipper. Unfortunately for Corny, he had to drop out due to heart trouble. After taking over as skipper, Cunningham won the 1958 America’s Cup Race.

Briggs serves in the nation, with his own planes

Briggs Swift Cunningham wasn’t just a Playboy rich guy; he was also a patriot. When World War II broke out, Briggs tried to enlist in the Navy, but was rejected for two reasons: first, he had a preexisting health condition, and second, at the age of thirty-three, he was deemed too old! So, he did the next-best thing; he joined the Civil Air Patrol, but not like any regular patriot. For patrolling the east coast looking for German submarines, Briggs bought his own planes; two of them, actually; a Fairchild and then a Sikorsky S-39 B Amphibious Plane.

Briggs was there at the beginning of the birth of organized sports car racing

In 1933, Briggs’ friends, Miles and Sam Collier, launched the Automobile Racing Club of America, the “ARCA”. In 1944, the organization adopted a new name: the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). Briggs was on the starting line for the very first SCCA racing event. After years of racing his own sailboats and winning championships, Briggs was more than ready for road racing. His was one of the few racing teams that arrived at the track in a big transporter. Yes, it was big bucks, but he could have just lived off the interest of his inheritance. Instead, he bought and built world-class, exotic racing sailboats and race cars.

One of Briggs’ first purpose-built race cars was called the “Bu-Merc” and used a 1939 Buick Century chassis, powertrain, and running gear. For better weight distribution, the big straight-eight Buick engine was moved back in the chassis, and the body was from a wrecked Mercedes-Benz SSK. Miles Collier drove the car at the 1940 World’s Fair Grand Prix at the New York Fairgrounds. An accident knocked the car out of the race. Then in 1948, Briggs raced the Bu-Merc at the first Watkins Glen race in 1948, finishing in 2^nd place.

The following year, thanks to his friend Charles Chayne, Buick Vice President of Engineering, Briggs got an advanced version of the Straight-Eight, raced the car at Watkins Glen, and finished in 3^rd place. Briggs was one of the most successful drivers of his time. So much so, he was a member of the by-invitation-only “Road Racing Drivers Club” that honored drivers, officials, and journalists.

All-Out Racing in the 1950s – the BS Cunningham Company cars

There are two parts to Briggs’ racing efforts from 1950 to 1966, when he last raced. One part was his company’s purpose-built production sports racing cars. The other part was cars that he bought, modified, and raced. Let’s look at the cars made by the “BS Cunningham Company”.

To get started, Briggs bought the Frick-Tappet Motors business on Long Island and moved its operation to Palm Beach, Florida. The “Cunningham C-1” was powered by GM’s hot new 331 OHV Cadillac V8. The classic small-block Chevy was a simplified version of the Cadillac engine. Only one “C-1” was built.

The “C-2R” was similar to the “C-1”, but used Chrysler’s Fire Power Hemi V8 engine. Briggs raced this car at Le Mans. The “C-3” was a road car. Briggs had to make twenty-five cars to pass homologation as a “production car”. One production count was twenty-five coupes and five convertibles.

G. Briggs Weaver designed the C-4R. Two roadsters and one coupe were built. The C-4RK Coupe debuted at Le Mans in 1952. The 1953 “C-5R” was powered by a Chrysler Fire Power Hemi engine and debuted at Le Mans. The French nicknamed the car, “Le Requin Souriant”, translated, “The Smiling Shark”. Then, in 1955, Briggs replaced the Chrysler Hemi with a four-cylinder Meyer & Drake Offenhauser torque monster. Briggs was a racer-first and had no loyalty to any company. He just wanted a fast, dependable road race car.

Cars that Briggs bought to race – Cadillacs at Le Mans?

Arguably, the two most outrageous cars Briggs raced were his 1950 Cadillacs. Both cars had Cadillac’s powerful new 331-CID OHV V-8 engine. The cars were based on the 1950 Series 61 because it was the lightest of all of Cadillac’s cars. Racing enhancements were limited to brake ducts and a few other minor details.

The second Cadillac was called “Le Monstre” by the French. The running gear was similar to the Series 61 car, but it had a small aluminum body over a tube frame body structure that was added to the Cadillac’s frame. Both cars finished with the Series 61 car coming in 10^th overall and Le Monstre coming in 11^th. Briggs was thinking way ahead of his time.

Briggs’ more conventional sports racing cars

In the 1950s, Briggs owned the following sports race cars:

• MG J2; a MG K3 Magnette;
• A supercharged MG TC;
• Ferrari 166 Spider Corsa;
• 1954 O.S.C.A. MT4 (won Sebring in 1953);
• 1955 Jaguar D-Type (won Sebring);
• 1954 Ferrari 375 MM with experimental water-cooled brakes (DNF Le Mans 1954);
• 1955 Maserati 300S (raced at Sebring)
• 1958 Lister-Costin (won SCCA C-Modified Championship; same class as Bill Mitchell’s Stingray in 1961).

In the 1960s, Briggs raced the following cars:

• Three 1960 Fuel Injected Corvettes (Class win at 1960 Le Mans).
• A 1960 Maserati Tipo 60 Birdcage (raced at 1961 Le Mans, 3^rd class, 8^th overall).
• Two Stanguellini Formula Junior cars; one 750cc front-engine and one 1100cc rear-engine.
• A 1961 Cooper T53 raced in the U.S. Grand Prix and crashed. Roger Penske bought the chassis to build his Zerex Special, which later became Bruce McLaren’s first team car.
• A Fiat-Abarth 1000 Bialbero Coupe (Bruce McLaren won the 1961 3 Hours of Sebring 1-Liter Grand Touring Class).
• Two 1962 Maserati Tipo 151 Coupes (raced at Le Mans).
• A 1962 Jaguar E-Type (also raced at Le Mans in 1962).
• One 1963 Jaguar E-Type Lightweight (raced at Le Mans to 9^th overall in 1963);
• A 1964 Porsche 904 (co-owned and co-driven with Lake Underwood) won the 2-Liter Class at the 1964  12 Hours of Sebring.
• One 1965 Porsche 904 2-Liter (class win and 9^th overall).

Briggs Swift Cunningham – Racer First

We are talking about Briggs Swift Cunningham because of his 1960 Le Mans assault with Fuelie Corvettes that brought home Corvette’s first Class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Briggs was not a “Corvette guy”; he would race whatever kind of car he thought gave him an edge.

Cunningham was not loyal to brands; he was loyal to winning. That’s a racer’s edge.

Duntov knew everyone in the racing world and was happy to make sure Briggs got the best he could get from Chevrolet. And it worked! Briggs scored another Le Mans Class win, Duntov was thrilled but disappointed that he couldn’t drive (he was too valuable to Chevrolet), and Corvette fans were thrilled.

What’s curious is that Briggs never again fielded a Corvette

Grady Davis used the same basic Duntov “Racer Kit” bundle of “Off Road” options to win the 1962 A/Production Championship! Davis stuck with Corvette to take advantage of the new 1963 Sting Ray with the Z06 “Racer Kit” package of options. Davis’ Gulf One Corvette was the most successful of the “Duntov assigned” Z06-equipped 1963 Corvettes.

Next, we’ll examine Cunningham’s three 1960 Le Mans Corvettes, the drivers who brought home Corvette’s first class victory, and the remarkable fate of the cars after the race. Sold as ordinary used Corvettes, the famous Cunningham machines disappeared for decades before Corvette enthusiast Chip Miller began a quest of his own to locate and preserve one of the most important racing Corvettes in history. – Scott

Corvette Generational History

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The 1962–1967 C2 Corvette Review: Engineering, Styling, Sales, and Legacy Story is now available.

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