Briggs S. Cunningham II, 96; Pioneering Auto Racer Also Won America’s Cup

Briggs Swift Cunningham II, a pioneer in American sports car racing who also won the America’s Cup in sailing, has died. He was 96.

Cunningham died Tuesday night at his home in Las Vegas of Alzheimer’s disease, according to his wife, Laura.

Born into wealth and privilege, Cunningham had the wherewithal to spend his life pursuing his competitive interests. He built cars, drove cars, developed engines and was one of the first Americans to challenge European drivers and owners in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France in the 1950s.

Cunningham’s adventures captured the public imagination and landed him on the cover of Time magazine in 1954.

Four years later, he captained the 12-meter sloop Columbia that won the America’s Cup, the world’s top sailing event.

An avid car collector, he housed his priceless beauties in a Costa Mesa museum from the mid-1960s until selling the collection in 1987.

Briggs Swift Cunningham II was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father, for whom he was named, was a wealthy banker who became even richer after backing a soap-making firm run by William Cooper Procter and James Norris Gamble. Procter was Briggs’ godfather.

The senior Cunningham died when Briggs was just 7, leaving him with a vast fortune. The son became interested in cars as a young man looking at engines with the family chauffeurs.

His mother sent him to a variety of top-end boarding schools, but he was less interested in academics than he was in mechanics, engines and movement.

He studied engineering at Yale for two years before quitting school, marrying and settling down in Connecticut as a gentleman sportsman.

With like-minded friends, Cunningham began promoting sports car racing and established the Automobile Racing Club of America. Years later, he was a founder of the Sports Car Club of America.

One of the cars he built was a BuMerc, which was a Mercedes-Benz body on a Buick chassis. It caused a sensation among racing fans at the New York World’s Fair in 1939.

Sports car racing re-emerged in America after World War II and took off in the late 1940s, with courses at that time running through the middle of small villages such as Watkins Glen, N.Y.

In one of the early races in Watkins Glen, Cunningham drove his BuMerc to a second-place finish. The next year, he again finished second, driving what was believed to be the first Ferrari racing car in America.

In 1950, intent on challenging the top European cars and drivers in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, he established a company to develop and build American contenders. No American car had ever won the European race.

When the French rejected Cunningham’s first attempted entry -- a hybrid called a Fordillac made by placing a Cadillac engine in a 1949 Ford -- he substituted two Cadillacs. One was basically a stock coupe while the other had been modified with a rectangular body, which some called ugly and the French dubbed Le Monstre.

Cunningham and a friend drove the stock coupe to a 10th-place finish; Le Monstre finished 11th. Encouraged by their showing, Cunningham returned to the United States determined to build a car that could win the race.

He began work on three vehicles for the 1951 event. Those vehicles each contained a 331-cubic-inch overhead-valve Hemi V-8 from Chrysler, producing 180 horsepower. Using four carburetors and higher compression, the Cunningham team got the engines up to 220 horsepower. The vehicles were called C-2Rs.

The cars were finished too late for preliminary testing before they had to be shipped to France for the June race. One of the three held second place for several hours before falling back because of valve problems. It crossed the finish line 18th, and Cunningham’s other two cars failed to finish.

He came back again the next year with similar vehicles with stronger Chrysler engines. Cunningham drove one of the cars himself for nearly 20 hours of the 24-hour race and finished fourth. His two other cars again failed to finish.

Cunningham returned to LeMans each year through 1955 but never won. One of his cars finished third in both 1953 and 1954.

An American-made vehicle would not win the race until 1966 -- a Ford GT40, sponsored by the Ford Motor Co.

Years later, Cunningham would tell a reporter for AutoWeek magazine that Le Mans was “the silliest race I think I’ve ever been to. They start the thing at 12 at night. How the hell are you going to get any sleep before the start of that race? I never did figure that out.”

His cars fared quite well, however, in American races. In 1951, the C-2R won at Elkhart Lake, Wis., and later placed first, second and fourth at Watkins Glen.

By 1955, Cunningham abandoned his car-building operation after the Internal Revenue Service ruled that such an endeavor was a hobby and not deductible as a business expense.

Through much of the rest of the 1950s, Cunningham imported and raced Jaguars at the new tracks opening up around the country, raceways like Laguna Seca and Riverside. He continued to race cars through the mid-1960s, and drove in his last race in 1966 at Sebring.

Over the years, when Cunningham wasn’t driving or building cars, he was racing yachts. In 1958, he skippered his 12-meter Columbia to victory in the America’s Cup. Cunningham would later dismiss his role, saying that he was just filling in for the regular skipper, Cornelius Shields, who had a heart ailment.

Nevertheless, he bested the British challenger Sceptre, winning four straight races off Newport, R.I., each time with a margin of victory of no less than half a mile.

He was also known in sailing for his development of a device that allowed the adjustment of the tension on the luff of a sail, which became known as the Cunningham.

The sportsman moved to the West Coast in the early 1960s, after meeting the woman who would become his second wife, Laura Maxine Elmer, at the Times Grand Prix for Sports Cars at the now defunct Riverside Raceway.

After Cunningham’s retirement from auto racing, the couple opened a museum in Costa Mesa in 1966 to house his automobile collection. The museum was the small city’s only place listed in American Automobile Assn. tour books under “What to See.”

The museum catered to the automotive aficionado, attracting between 15,000 and 18,000 visitors a year. It closed in 1987, when Cunningham sold his cars to a Palm Beach collector.

The couple lived in Newport Beach and Rancho Santa Fe before they moved to Las Vegas in the late 1990s.

In addition to his wife of 40 years, Cunningham is survived by a son, Briggs S. Cunningham III of Danville, Ky., and daughters Lucie McKinney of Green Farms, Conn., and Cythlen Maddock of Palm Beach, Fla. He is also survived by stepsons Bill Elmer and Joe Elmer; 19 grandchildren; and 31 great-grandchildren.

Memorial services are scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Aug. 8 at Pacific View Cemetery, 3500 Pacific View Drive, Corona del Mar.

Instead of flowers, the family suggests a donation be made to the Alzheimer’s Assn.