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One day this really old guy showed up at my shop and asked if I would
like to restore a Cunningham. In all honesty, I had never heard of a
Cunningham before. But I acted like I was familiar with them and said sure.
Soon after the first meeting he took me over to his home to see the car.
We pulled into the driveway and he hit the garage door opener. As I looked
through the windshield of his vehicle I saw the front end of an absolutely
fantastic looking car peeking out as the door was rising. I got out of his
vehicle and walked up to the Cunningham and just stood staring in awe at
the most beautiful work of art that I had ever seen. The body which was
built by Vignale of Italy was all hand hammered aluminum. I have no words
that will express how excited I was to get the job and to be able to restore
that car. During the restoration I discovered the Cunningham is a very odd
car, it was made from so many different components. For example: The
transmission came from a Cadillac LeSalle, the engine and rear end both came
from Chrysler and the wheel backing plates were Chevrolet. The list goes on
and on. According to our research, we believe there were sixteen Cunningham
C3's built. This particular car had a tremendous amount of history behind
it. It was the only C-3 coupe that was personally raced by Briggs
Cunningham. It has been all over the world and had more air miles on it than
road miles. Unfortunately the owner has passed away. The car ended up in
the Peterson Automotive Museum. If you would like more information about
this car just contact me. Click on a picture to see it in full size.
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