Cunningham C5-R
The Cunningham C5-R was a sports car developed for the Briggs Cunningham racing team in 1953 .
technology
The C5-R was the successor to the C4-R and was built for use in the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1953 . The open sports car had a 5.5-liter Chrysler - V8 engine of / made at 5200 rpm 310 hp. The C5-R had a rigid axle at the front , which was taken over from the Kurtis Kraft - Indianapolis - monoposto racing car at the suggestion of Briggs Cunningham . There was torsion bar suspension at the front and rear. The vehicle had a tubular frame and an aluminum body.
Racing history
As planned, the C5-R made its racing debut at the Le Mans 24-hour race in 1953 . Cunningham had been coming to the Sarthe regularly for endurance races with his racing cars since 1950 and had already been able to gain some experience. The team presented the long-time factory driver Phil Walters as the driver and, in John Fitch, another American as his partner. Even during training, the new Cunningham racing car amazed the experts. For the first time, speed measurements were carried out in Le Mans and the C5-R was the fastest sports car on the Les Hunaudieres straight with a top speed of 249 km / h. The vehicle was also significantly faster than the two factory C4-Rs. In the race, only that prevented work - Jaguar C-Type a Cunningham triumph. Behind Tony Rolt and Duncan Hamilton as well as Stirling Moss and Peter Walker , Walters and Fitch finished third overall. After the race, Briggs Cunningham complained about the lack of disc brakes on his racing car. From his point of view, this was the reason for the defeat, as the C-Type already had this new braking system. The drum brakes on the C5-R kept getting too hot, a circumstance that forced the drivers to slow down as much as possible.
The next time it was used, the Reims 12-hour race in 1953 , the car was badly damaged after an accident by John Fitch. The accident vehicle was brought back to the USA and rebuilt there. The attempt to get disc brakes failed. Cunningham therefore concentrated on building the C6-R and in the meantime used racing vehicles from OSCA and Ferrari . The C5-R was still driven in some US sports car races and was sold to racing driver Charles Moran at the end of the year .