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In 1962, Carroll Shelby envisioned building a lightweight roadster with a powerful American V-8 under the hood. That vision became the Cobra sports car.
But the idea for such a machine was originally developed more than a decade before by Briggs Swift Cunningham II, sporting enthusiast, gentleman racer and fearless competitor.
As heir to his family’s meat-packing fortune, Cunningham had the means to pursue practically any extracurricular endeavor he wished. Sports was his passion and auto racing, in particular, consumed him.
But it wasn’t until 1948 when the 41-year-old Cunningham turned his first few laps on a race course. In those days, as it is today, one of the most prestigious and grueling races in the world was the French 24 Hours of Le Mans. It was also an event utterly dominated by Italian, German and British race cars. Cunningham decided to rise to the challenge and see if he couldn’t make history in the process.
In 1950, Cunningham fielded a two-car team for the big endurance test. One was a nearly stock Series 61 Cadillac coupe equipped with a 160-horsepower 331-cubic-inch V-8. The other was similarly powered, but was wrapped in one of the strangest bodies ever displayed on a race car. Its appearance was that of a bar of soap, having both front and rear wheel skirts and a boat-tail rear end. The car appeared almost homemade despite being designed and built by several Grumman aircraft engineers during their off hours. Dubbed “Le Monstre” (the Monster) by the French press, this Cadillac-powered oddity managed a respectable 11th place finish, despite an off-track excursion where Cunningham spent more than a half-hour vigorously digging the car out of the sand with his bare hands.
The stock-bodied Series 61 coupe ended up in 10th place overall, one position ahead of boat-tailed Caddy racer.
The same year as his first Le Mans effort, Cunningham built his own sports car, the C-1 roadster, followed in 1951 by the C-2R. The latter of the two was the first to use Chrysler’s 331-cubic-inch Hemi V-8 engine, replacing Cadillac as Cunningham’s engine of choice.