The cars of Briggs Cunningham, collector and connoisseur

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Briggs Cunningham is a name one primarily associates with post-war motor sport, particularly as a champion of the American V8 at Le Mans during the 1950s, as well as with his very handsome, and very expensive, Cunningham C-3 road-going sports cars which were built in very low volume with Chrysler V8s and Vignale coachwork. However, like most racing drivers of his era, he was also a great enthusiast with a genuine affection and respect for the work of car-makers of previous generations.

Briggs Swift Cunningham II. was born in 1907 into a wealthy commercial family and would have travelled in motor cars on multiple occasions during his childhood in Cincinatti. Before he became internationally famous as a constructor in the 1950s, he had been gradually rising to prominence since 1930, when he won a concours d'élégance in Cannes with his brand-new Mercedes-Benz SSK while on his honeymoon. He also started racing around that time with his old college friends, Miles and Sam Collier, who founded the Automobile Racing Club of America in 1933, which became the Sports Car Club of America in 1944. During this period, some of his early cars included the Number Five Special, which consisted of a Model T Ford engine with Frontenac head in a bespoke chassis, an MG J2, an MG K3 Magnette and the Bu-Merc, which used a modified 1939 Buick straight-eight chassis and the body from a crashed Mercedes-Benz SSK.

Cunningham retired from racing in 1965, and immediately channelled his energy into developing a first-class collection of historic vehicles, which he would put on display for the benefit of the public. He had been collecting for some years, aided and encouraged by William Harrah. Following a move to California with the enthusiastic support of his second wife, Laura, a permanent location for a museum was eventually found on a five-acre site in Orange County, where a building covering 40,000 sq. ft. was constructed. The Briggs Cunningham Automotive Museum officially opened with a gala dinner for 650 guests on February 5th, 1966. Sadly, it operated at a loss and closed on December 31st, 1986, when the entire collection was sold to Miles Collier Jr.

Thanks, however, to some historic photographs, we may still pay a fleeting visit as time-travellers. We can see from the photographs a predilection for Duesenbergs, about which we needn't say more as their information boards are clearly legible, except to add that the ex-Gary Cooper SJ was sold by Gooding & Company at Pebble Beach in 2021 for $22,000,000. Cunningham had paid $3,500 for it... The tank-like car, incidentally, is Le Monstre, an aerodynamically rebodied Cadillac which Cunningham used to contest the 1950 Le Mans. Driven by Cunningham and Phil Walters, it finished eleventh. Cunningham also fielded a standard-bodied Cadillac Series 62 coupé, driven by the Collier brothers, which finished tenth. But it is the photograph of the main hall which is most of interest. Several cars are easily recognisable. There's a Hispano-Suiza followed by a Mercer Raceabout and a Simplex, and we can also see one of the 1913 Indianapolis Peugeots, a 1914 Grand Prix Mercédès, a Bugatti Type 35, a large brass-era Pierce-Arrow and the jewel in the crown, the Kellner-bodied Bugatti Royale. What else is among them?

Words: Zack Stiling
Photographs: Stiling Collection

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