Cunningham

Cunningham

Sherri sent me a link to an article about Briggs Cunningham, though it was more about his affinity for and history with rare watches, some of whom were unique “one off” pieces, rather than his work with car or yacht racing (he won the Americas Cup race in 1958 with his boat “Columbia”) with which the public is arguably more familiar. At any rate the article triggered my own recollections about Briggs and his cars. I never met him, and yet there were a number of times my own history crossed paths with his earlier one.

The first instances of this occurred in my childhood, though I did not realize there was a connection until many years later. Cunningham spent much time in Florida, and the factory in which his eponymous cars were created was in West Palm Beach, no more than 60 or so miles from where I grew up.

The other connection was through his friendship with the Collier brothers, fellow racers from the Gulf Coast of the state. This was terra incognito for me while living in Florida. The only time I was in that area, prior to the wedding to my first wife (kind of an odd story in itself, getting married in a town neither of us had any ties to, but not for this blog), was a weekend trip to Naples with the family when I was a young child. Back then the place was a dismal little dot of nothing surrounded almost totally by Everglades wilderness. It was also many years before I learned that the elder Collier had earned his fortune in advertising, and that one of his innovations was the invention of advertising cards originally for Pullman railroad cars and later seen in buses and commuter train cars as well. Oh, and he also built the Tamiami Trail, the first road between Miami and the Gulf Coast, upon which we took that early 50s trip to Naples.

At some point I became aware that there was a southwest Florida county called “Collier,” and that Naples was the primary city in that forsaken place. But it was decades later when I first learned about the Collier brothers, that the county was named for their father Barron, and that they were not only friends with Cunningham, but along with him and Cameron Agetsinger were the major forces in bringing racing to Watkins Glen, New York.

But first I had to “discover” Briggs, and I owe that pleasure, as many others, to John Lewis, some of whose exploits weave their way through many of the blog posts.

In the late 1970s the Long Beach Grand Prix was not an “Indy Car” event, but was on the international Formula One calendar. The Ferrari Owners Club had an entire grandstand on what originally was the dangerous “Queen's Haripin” turn, so named because of its proximity to the permanently docked Queen Mary. Sherri and I attended that event twice with the club, though unfortunately this was an era where Ferrari was not doing well in F1. I no longer recall if we drove down to SoCal or flew, but I have no recollection of driving the Ferrari there at any rate.

But aside from the race itself and other club events and parties there was ample free time and, at John's suggestion, we accompanied him to the Cunningham car collection and museum, which I believe was in Costa Mesa. While we did not meet the man himself, John did know and introduce us to the curator of the collection, John Burgess. John was an artist who did a lot of work painting racing machinery, though much of it related to American dirt track “Sprint” type cars and venues. However, there were exceptions, such as this tempra and watercolor piece now listed for sale here:https://rogallery.com/Burgess_John/w-1720/burgess_john-painting-alfa_rain.html.

John L. impressed upon me that all the cars in the collection were drivable and were “exercised” regularly. I don't recall many of them but two made a lasting impression, a Ferrari and a Bugatti.

The Ferrari is a 166 Corsa, and though shockingly utilitarian and not at all the sleek and refined look I expected, was an important beginning to me education about the early racing successes of the marque as well as being important for another reason...it is said to be the first Ferrari brought to the US. 

1947-1948 Ferrari 166 Spyder Corsa
http://dark-cars.over-blog.com/article-1947-1948-ferrari-166-spyder-corsa-63007209.html

One of the Six Royale
The Coupe Napoleon
Wikipedia Photo

The Bugatti memory stays with me, as it would with almost anyone, simply because of the presenceof the machine. It is one of the six surviving Royale models, and like all of them, it is huge.They are over 20 feet long, and I have a photo buried somewhere of Sherri standing next to the front fender and wheel, which comes nearly to chest height. 

Cunningham used to outrage local Bugatti Club members by driving the car to lunch every so often.Just to show that Ettore must have had a sense of humor, he allowed this hood ornament, designed by his brother, to adorn the cars.

Prancing Elephant
Royale Hood Ornament
Wikipedia Photo

When I got the Siata I was not particularly sensitive to its history. I wanted to go racing. Vintage at that time in California meant “real” been there, done that racers with documented history. For the Siata at that point all I was told was that it had raced at Sebring and ran number #56. That information came from Ernie Mendicki, another name you will see elsewhere numerous times in this blog, but I'm pretty sure it was sourced from the research of John and Jarl deBoer. At some point I will, no doubt, delve more deeply into the complex story of the deBoers as well as John's publication of rare Italian cars and their history, but it Sebring which first tied me back to Briggs Cunningham.

As the years accumulated I also accumulated...more historical documentation about my car. At first this consisted of copying material from magazines Ernie had which discussed the 1953 Sebring race. One of them even listed the results in detail. That is where I learned how successful the Siata was at that race, but also that the overall winner was a Cunningham C4-R driven by Phil Walters and John Fitch.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_12_Hours_of_Sebring

So naturally, one year at Sebring one of the booths was selling copies of the Randy Owens poster showing the first and second place finisher (Reg Parnell and George Abecassis/Aston Martin DB3). 

Randy Owens Poster
Still available at
http://stores.randyowens.com/sebring-53-cunningham/

Obviously I had to buy one.

My final connection to Cunningham relative to cars came after I learned the Siata had also raced at Watkins Glen in 1952. Although Briggs was not involved directly in the tragedy which ended street racing at the Glen forever, a Cunningham car was. The result in terms of my history and that of the Siata is that it participated in, and completed, the last race ever run on the original Watkins Glen street course(the preceding Queen Catherine's Cup).

Briggs was leading the race when the second C4-R, again piloted by John Fitch, almost collided with the Allard driven by Fred Wacker as Fitch set up for the right hand turn at the end of Franklin Street. While both drivers reacted by swerving away from each other, the tail of the Allard came out and clipped a young boy sitting on the curb with fatal results. I have an original photo of the Siata taken earlier the same day and just yards from this spot and the casual lack of effective crowd control is readily apparent.

Note the guy weighing himself
and the lack of barriers of any kind

There is, perhaps, one final link to Cunningham, though this is (literally) a stretch. For decades I wanted to learn to sail, and finally took a sailing class on San Francisco Bay a few years ago. While my boat does not have one, a device I learned about and which was present on the boat we sailed, was invented by Briggs. Though not relevant to this blog, here is a picture of it from Wikipedia: 

Cunningham Downhaul
Tightens and changes shape of mainsail