The Briggs Cunningham 1960 Corvette Le Mans Racer No3

The short story is that businessman and gentleman racer Briggs Cunningham had tried unsuccessfully at winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the 50s and so he turned to Zora Arkus-Duntov for help. With Zora’s help, three identically prepared Corvettes with 283-fuelie V8s were purchased by Cunningham and further prepped for racing at Le Mans. Zora’s original plan was to drive one of the cars, however his boss Ed Cole nixed it due to the AMA ban on racing as well as the fact that Zora was simply too valuable to the brand as that point. In the opening hours of the race, the three Corvette racers were doing well against their European counterparts in the GT 5.0 Class, but rain started falling in the afternoon when disaster struck for the No. 1 Corvette. As the rain opened up, the No.1 car entered the pits and refueled with Bill Kimberly taking over for Briggs Cunningham. Still on regular tires, Kimberly lost control at the Maison Blanche corner, spinning, and flipping over before coming to rest wheels down. Kimberly was able to escape as the engine caught fire, dashing the hopes of the No.1 Corvette after 32 laps. The No.2 Corvette would make it to lap 207 before it would retire due to engine failure, but the No.3 Corvette turned out to be the champ, and it would finish first in class and 8th overall.

1:8th scale