Ryan, I encourage you to go to REVS.org and look up both cars plus the 1927 Packard Briggs first car it to me the Holy Grail of Hot Rodding. Jim Wood
https://revsinstitute.org/ https://revsinstitute.org/the-collection/cadillac-1950-series-61-le-mans/ https://revsinstitute.org/the-collection/1927-packard-speedster/ I wonder if Mr. Cunningham and my great-grandfather Harold White were in the same engineering classes at Yale, haha.
Can you post a link to that site? When I type it in, GoDaddy wants to sell me the domain name of revs.org.
Here's a link to the first Cunningham Museum in Costa Mesa. I got a tour from John Burgess in the early seventies. https://www.briggscunningham.com/the-cunningham-museum/
Old race cars being driven by present day drivers at a minimum shows the effort needed to wrestle an old piece around even at parade lap speeds. Another fun video out there is Taylor driving a Greenwood corvette at Laguna/ Mazda raceway in historic races…
I've got a bunch of pictures of Briggs Cunningham from Frank Sessions in fact. Racing four D-type jaguars, and loading them up on his open car hauler. Really neat guy.
I'll bet Le Monstre was a handful at top speed. That body shape would lift the front end over 90 MPH making steering a little twitchy, I'd think.
OK, I was not aware of that. I don't think the organizers would have said no to an Oldsmobile - in the first races after the war it was "anything goes", I'm sure they were concerned about not enough entries. But if GM/Cadillac was involved and the thinking was "we need a Cadillac out there" (although there was already an Allard-Cadillac entry which ultimately finished at 3rd place) Briggs would have been foolish to argue. I still think a NASCAR spec 88 would have had far better chances of getting a good result at Le Mans, it would have been faster than the Aston Martin DB 2 which finished 5th and 6th and maybe even some of the sports cars. It is what it is though and yes, the Cadillacs look superb with that color scheme...
I ran into his son way back in '65 at a popular American surf spot in Baja. When we introduced ourselves around a campfire on the beach one night, he mentioned his name was ____Cunningham. I asked if he was any relation to the race car driver, and he replies, "Yes, he's my dad." I called B.S. and he says, "Hang 10.......errrr.......hang on, I'll be right back." Walks over to his new Dodge surf van, and comes back w/ an old scrapbook of photos. Sure enough............I ate a lot of crow for dinner.....
The '50 Cadillac and the Le Monstre at the 2022 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance: images by @John D'Agostino images by Timothy McGrane
I could have sworn I already posted these videos here in this thread, but I guess I never got a ... enjoy: footage of Le Monstre at the 1950 Watkins Glen Gran Prix at the 2:27 & 4:01 marks Le Monstre at the 2022 Le Mans Classic Derek Drinkwater driving the Cadillac at the 2022 Goodwood Members Meeting
The Jalopy Journal
