Illustrated Corvette Series No. 127 - Briggs Cunningham's 1960 Le Mans Racing Corvette

Thirty nine years before the ‘99 C5-Rs arrived at Le Mans, there was another Corvette team that took Le Mans by storm. GM’s official position may have been, “we don’t race,” but that didn’t stop Zora Arkus-Duntov from making hot parts for racers and coincidentally taking his vacation on the same dates as important racing events. Sports car racing was relatively new to Americans and considered the realm of the small European cars. But Duntov and a few select friends had a different agenda.

Briggs Swift Cunningham‘s passion for racing began in 1930 and included not only cars, but yacht racing. Briggs was a wealthy financier and poured millions of dollars into his racing enterprises. In the ’50s he racked up dozens of sports car wins and took the America’s Cup in ‘58 He had a passion for creating racing teams and raced anything that was fast - Ferraris, Mercedes, Porsches, Maseratis. But when the big V-8 Corvettes started winning sportsman races, Briggs took notice.

Meanwhile, back in Detroit, Duntov was always looking for people to champion his Corvettes. In 1960, the rules for the GT 5000 class allowed big-engine cars to race at Le Mans. Briggs loved speed and Duntov loved seeing Corvettes raced. Cunningham built a 3-car team and Lloyd Casner fielded a similar looking Corvette. The four big-engine,white Corvettes lined up first and were an imposing sight to the Europeans.

Compared to the C5-R and the C6.R Corvettes, the Cunningham and Casner cars were amazingly stock. The cars were prepared by Alfred Momo with help from Duntov, Frank Burrell, and a few other Corvette engineers. All used a basically stock 283 / 290-horsepower Fuelie engine with cast-iron manifolds, side-exit exhausts, and an oil cooler. Racing drum brakes were used and the car road on Halibrand magnesium knock-off wheels, and racing tires. An over-sized gas tank was added with a center-mounted, quick-fill gas cap. The interior had a roll bar, special instruments, racing bucket seats, and an adjustable steering column. The hardtops were bolted on and all of the cars were white with blue stripes. Corvettes were tough-looking, fast cars at Le Mans in 1960.

Le Mans is all about speed and endurance. Car #1 crashed and burned after three hours of racing. At the 17th hour, the Fuelie engine in car #2 expired. At hour #22, car #3 with Bob Grossman and John Fitch driving, experienced a broken radiator cap that lead to a blown head gasket. The engine was packed with ice and finished the race in 5th place overall and 1st place in the GT 5000 class. The Casner car finished in 21st place.

The fastest of the team cars hit 151-mph on the Mulsanne Straight with a 4:26.2 lap time. Production Vettes wouldn’t see 150-mph until the arrival of the big-blocks. Briggs Cunningham knew how to build fast, endurance cars, and Duntov was all too happy to provide unofficial assistance from Chevrolet. This was the juicy stuff of legends.