Briggs Cunningham III

Briggs Swift Cunningham III (born June 13, 1932) is a for Cunningham Motorsports, who jointly owns the organization with Kerry Scherer, is said to be in declining health and no longer wants to continue his ownership role with the team. Cunningham first entered the ARCA Racing Series in 1996 when he formed CSG Racing with Scherer and Mark Gibson. The team would go on to win the ARCA championship with Chase Briscoe in 2016. Scherer's role in a potential team buyout with other crew members remains unclear.

Biography
At this point Cunningham conceded ignorance of the merits of the case. The Cunningham family, traditionally Brahmin and publicity shy, issued a subdued statement regarding the litigation that said in part, "it has become increasingly clear that the values held dear by the family are in direct conflict with the ideology of the company's management team. We are disappointed and saddened by the position in which the Cunningham Motor Company has put us."

GM spokesman Jay Cooney responded, "The complaint filed by Mr. Cunningham does not contain allegations of any wrongful conduct by GM or Mr. Lutz. GM does not believe that the claims against it and Mr. Lutz have any merit and will defend the case vigorously."

The C7 coupe was shown at the 2001 Detroit auto show to considerable acclaim. Designed by Stewart Reed, who has also been sidelined by the wrangling, the four-place fastback, which was to be powered by a 600 hp, 6.8 l V-12 developed by GM and Cosworth Technology, was svelte and smooth-lined but considerably larger than the two-place GT coupe envisioned by Briggs III and his sidekick, Larry Black, when the alliance with Lutz was formed in 1999. According to Black (who is also no longer connected with the company after serving as a major catalyst and the honcho of the five Cunningham C4R roadster "continuations" built in Lime Rock, Connecticut, and tested here ["Cunningham Redux," April 1998]), Lutz vetoed the sexy two-seater in favor of the larger four-place version.

In his modest opinion, the proposed two-seater (shown here) as drawn by Colorado designer Mike Mate is the Cunningham that should have been produced. To me it vividly projected the classic image of the original cars.

Briggs III — just pledged to the Y isn’t going to break the bank. (Briggs III’s sister, Lucie McKinney, pledged $500,000. But she’s got more skin in the game. She’s a Westporter — III lives in Kentucky — and 2 of her 5 children are Y board members.)

The Cunningham-Bedford Y connection is indeed strong. In 1944 the Y was offered 30 acres of land off Sunny Lane, near their newly established camp. Fred Bedford (Briggs II’s father-in-law, and III’s grandfather) said the Bedford Trust Fund would pay half of the cost — provided the Westport community matched it.

The total amount: $10,000.

In 1945, the Y moved onto the new land, which they called Bedford Camp. The next year — at Fred’s request — it was changed to Mahackeno. The name honored Mahackemo, the chief of the Norwalke Indians, who in the early 1600s used the property as a summer home lodge.

C3
Most Cunningham automobiles were high-performance that Briggs Cunningham and his team built specifically for racing in the 1950s. A few, adapted for street use, were personal vehicles. In 1952, Cunningham introduced the Continental C3 road car. Production began in his West Palm Beach plant where his team of mechanics installed 331-cubic-inch  in racing chassis. These were shipped to Turin, Italy to be fitted with aluminum and steel bodies by, after which they were returned to the Florida plant for completion. There were 25 Continental C3s produced: 20 coupes and five convertibles. They sold for $8,000 to $12,000. Notable owners included and a member of the. Of these 25 cars, 24 are known to have survived.

C4-R
Cunningham's announcement in 1951 of his intention to build an American contender for outright victory at the Le Mans race caused a stir on both continents. His team was already a favorite with the Le Mans fans, and the announcement demonstrated his commitment to fielding a winning team of American drivers and automobiles.

One of the cars, the Chrysler-powered Cunningham C4-R built by The B. S. Cunningham Company of West Palm Beach, Florida and driven by Phil Walters and John Fitch, finished 18th out of 60 starters. The other, driven by George Rand and Fred Wacker Jr., failed to finish.

In 1952 the C4-R of Briggs Cunningham and Bill Spear finished fourth overall at Le Mans.

A C4-R won the 1953 Sebring 12 Hours. At Le Mans Walters and Fitch finished first in class and third overall with a C5-R, and the two other Team Cunningham cars finished seventh and tenth. They returned to take third and fifth place in 1954.

These years were to be the high point of achievement for Cunningham-built cars at Le Mans. With victory unattained, the effort was described as a "gallant failure" by American journalist Ozzie Lyons. Later in 1954, a C4-R driven by Briggs Cunningham and Sherwood Johnston finished sixth in the Reims 12 Hour sports car race, behind three Jaguars and two Ferraris.

, designer of the Jaguar D-Type, which had exceptional torsional rigidity, noted after the 1954 Le Mans that the chassis frame of the C-4R had "no effective diagonal bracing. It therefore twists so much that the door cannot work if one rear wheel is jacked up", and that the bodies were designed "with no theoretical basis".

C6-R
At the Le Mans in 1955 the Cunningham C6-R, fitted with an Offenhauser engine, retired from the race. Second and third gears failed, and the engine, designed for methanol fuel and insufficiently modified for the mandatory French pump gasoline, overheated. A burned exhaust valve ended the car's run.

Team successes with other marques
In addition to Cunninghams, the team raced, Jaguar, Maserati, Corvette, O.S.C.A., Porsche, and other sports cars. One set a record in 1954 that remains unbroken: driven by and Bill Lloyd, Cunningham's 1.5-liter O.S.C.A. MT4 (Maserati Tipo 4) become the smallest-engined car ever to win the Sebring 12 Hours race, and also the first to win on wire wheels. The team won at Sebring again the following year, this time with a Jaguar D-Type. In 1960 Cunningham entered a team of four cars at Le Mans: three race-modified 1960 Chevrolet Corvettes, and an E-type Jaguar driven by Dan Gurney. The #3 Corvette, driven by John Fitch and Bob Grossman, finished first in the GT Class and eighth overall, the first-ever class win by a Corvette at Le Mans. The model's best-ever finish there, the achievement was unsurpassed for over 40 years. In 1964 Briggs Cunningham and Lake Underwood won the 3.0 Liter Prototype class at Sebring with their jointly-owned Porsche 904 GTS, and in 1965 they won the 2-liter class and finished ninth overall, again with a 904 GTS.

Racing stripes
Cunningham's cars were the first to be painted with racing stripes. The traditional Cunningham racing colors were blue stripes on white, at that time the international racing colors of the United States. Carroll Shelby, who competed against Cunningham and his team, adopted these colors and revived the Cunningham Team stripes for his own brand of race cars.

Collection
Cunningham amassed a collection of automobiles that included the first Ferrari sold in the United States by Luigi Chinetti, and a Bugatti Royale, one of only six made. To house the collection he opened the Cunningham Museum in Costa Mesa, California. Eventually the vehicles were sold to his long-time friend Miles Collier, to be combined with the Collier Automotive Museum collection in Naples, Florida, which also was open to the public at that time.