Museo Stradale

Dominic's Auto Museum
One man's passionate quest to survey finest motorcars in the world

Photographed: Radnor Hunt Concours d'Elegance, 2007. Owner: Vail & Linda Frost

Swift: Cunningham cars were a development of a sigular motorsport goal—to win the Le Mans 24 hour race. Briggs Cunningham spent the better part of the fifties in this pursuit, and all of the machines that bear his name contain his passion within their skin. The relationship between man and machine is, in this case, similar to Ferrari, which machinery always remarks upon the man whose drive manifested itself in so many creative motive forms.

Indeed, Briggs Cunningham was after Enzo Ferrari's heart, though he was less the industrialist and more the patron. As such, his goal was decidedly narrower, with an accordingly smaller production capacity. This means Cadillac chassis were first attempted at Le Mans in 1950 before a purpose-built race car found its way into the navy and white livery reserved for American entries on the international motorsport stage.

At Le Mans, those purpose-built race cars eventually did as well as third place overall with Briggs as one of the drivers, and numerous class wins among the Cunningham fleet augmented this achievment during that golden era of endurance racing. But, to concern ourselves with this car, we note that competing at Le Mans meant homologating your race car—something over which Ferrari often battled the FIA, and with varying levels of success.

Homologation is the process of building a required number of road cars in order to justify the entry of a race prepared version in a production car racing category. If fewer than the required number of road cars were built, then the racing version would be classified as a prototype. Prototype cars are, by design, full-on race cars, and almost always superior to racing versions of production cars. Therefore, it's always been a smart strategy for the Le Mans hopeful to design a race car for the production classes, then tune it down for road use in a production run of just enough cars to keep the FIA happy. Cunningham did just that.

A figure very close to the FIA required 25 examples were built of the C-3 Coupe, all of which share the basic C-2R racing chassis and motor, although they are mildly tuned compared to the race versions. The chassis is a simple ladder-box frame—something easily constructed by the small operation—while the motor is Chrysler sourced. In typical American form, the Chrysler Firepower V-8 is configured at 90 degrees and displaces about 5.4 litres, or around 331 cubic inches. Cunningham designed a bespoke intake manifold to let the motor breathe a bit deeper, fitting four Zenith down-draft carburetors. Around 235 horsepower and 300 lb ft. of torque is available at the rear wheels. For an American road car, this is tremendous considering it debuted in 1952, one year before the first Corvette will appear with a timid in-line 6-cylinder and 3-speed automatic. The C-3 can get to 60 miles per hour in 7 seconds, although I'd bet it's positively scary at a reported 130 mile per hour top end. Those thin white-walls just don't inspire confidence.

Creating an American GT: The C-3 coupe, like all Cunningham factory cars, was built in West Palm Beach, Florida. Of course, the Italian custom coachwork speaks to an international motorsport sensibility. The point, one might say, is not the surprising acceleration, but the grand touring package. American cars just weren't savvy, but Cunningham made sure his would be.

Over in Milan, Vignale matched the Cunningham chassis to a Giovanni Michelotti design that we might consider standard for the firm. This same design was executed on Ferrari 212 and 225 chassis, although this similarity is truly flattering in any context. While many of the subtlties are identical on both the Cunningham and Ferrari—the sculpted cove along the flank, metalwork on the bonnet, and sleek tail lights faired into the rear quarter panels—the former actually comes out looking a bit better proportioned. Extra wheelbase probably helps, because the Michelotti design throws so many little cues at your eyes that the overall effect is better when they're given more room to themselves.

The choice to outsource bodies to Vignale was, ironically, economic. It would have been more costly for Cunningham to have crafted their own coachwork, whereas Vignale could simply use a basic design for which they already had tooling. The partnership knocked a few thousand dollars off the cost of building the C-3, although the car would still be priced way too high for the market to bear. Even at $9,000.00, the sales price didn't cover the $12,000.00 production cost. No matter, it was all in the name of Le Mans racing. And anyway, Cunningham's relatively brisk chassis production was offset by the slow pace of Vignale's coachbuilding, and so the whole construction process was somewhat complimentary to the lethargic sales.

Say that the C-3 is a prime example of Michelotti coachwork, complete with iconic two-tone finish, and that's enough to make the car highly desirable. The United States didn't have another sporting car that took so well to Italian design. But add the racing history of which this production car is an integral part, and it becomes a true thoroughbred in the fullest sense of the term. Of course, this thoroughbred is fitted with a 4-speed automatic transmission, which is no small contradiction. But, it's only a marker of Cunningham's intention of selling the car in the U.S. market, where the definition of grand touring meant as little driving effort as possible, that the shifting is handled for driver.

Very few people knew of, or had the chance to experience a Cunningham car when they were new. The same holds true today, and so it was a great joy to find this example, sporting a most striking cobalt and white livery, at the Radnor Hunt Concours in 2007. I'll look forward to seeing some of the other examples I know are out and about. Although 4 were reportedly built, finding a complete, running example of an ultra rare convertible road car may take a lot of patience, as I'm uncertain whether any of them exist.

Updating the previous item: A two-tone red and black cabriolet has come to auction as of early 2009, so they are out there and may become available for survey some time in the future.

Sources:

Christie's Exceptional Motor Cars - Pebble Beach Auction Catalogue, 1999, p. 140-141

Hyman Classic Cars, As of writing, they have for sale a 1954 C-3 Coupe in two-tone green. It's yours for $675,000.00. Comparing this figure to the car's value at auction in 1999, it appears that the value of a C-3 has experienced more than 800% inflation over a ten year period.

UltimateCarPage.com, Another good informational site, this link will take you right to their nice article on the C-3 Coupe.

I'd also like to acknowledge a few random voices in my head, in particular the one that said hey, this looks like a Ferrari 212 Inter.

 

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