Word: cunningham
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Know Why . . ." There are other kinds of danger. Engines can overheat and tear themselves apart before a groggy driver has fully realized the warning of his oil and temperature gauges. Without warning, gearboxes can shatter, axles crumble, fuel lines clog up, brakes freeze or fade out, tires blow. Cunningham & Co. are just as aware of these mechanical hazards as they are of the physical hazards. In the last years, fewer than 40% of the starters have even managed to limp through the grueling 24-hour test, much less finish it with the cars intact...
Since the end of the war, when Cunningham and others founded the Sports Car Club of America, membership has doubled nearly every year, and 175 like-minded groups have sprung up across the country with members driving everything from British MGs ($2,250 and up) to Jaguar I 20s ($3,345 and up) to 4.5-liter Ferraris ($15,000 and up). Detroit is obviously perking up and taking notice. The Chevrolet Corvette and the Ford Thunderbird (TIME, Feb. 2, 1953), though probably not sporty enough for European purists, are efforts to meet 1) the conditions of the U.S. highway network...
Stately Pierces. Briggs Cunningham was born in the middle of the Vanderbilt Cup era, in 1907. But at the Cunningham house in Cincinnati, where Briggs Sr. made his money in meat packing, the speedy shenanigans on Long Island were ignored. Father Cunningham was a lover of good horseflesh. It was not until he died in 1914 that Mrs. Cunningham bought the family's first car, a stately Pierce Arrow that Briggs, with the help of the family chauffeur, later learned to drive...
...Cunningham remembers that first Pierce well, since "mother was happy with the same car as long as it would run. It lasted ten years, and after that we had another Pierce that lasted another ten years." Briggs got his own first car, a Dodge, at 16, graduated to Auburns and Packards at a time when some of his racier friends were racketing around in Stutz Bearcats and Mercer Raceabouts...
Back in the U.S., Cunningham, like many another of his generation, learned to fly airplanes. But sailing became his chief sport. Sparing nothing to get the best boats available, he won time & again in the tough six-meter class, and sailed against the best, e.g., Corny Shields, Arthur Knapp, in the top-drawer International Class. He also began collecting "classic" sports cars. Among them: a 1929 Bugatti Royale, a 1913 Mercer Raceabout, a 1909 American Underslung, a 1913 Peugeot, plus a mint collection of Bentleys. the $15,000 British sports car that Cunningham generally drives when he is not racing...