1952 Cunningham C-3, chassis 5208. Photos by Robin Adams. courtesy RM Sotheby’s.
A picture, it’s said, is worth a thousand words, but the image of an unassembled and unpainted Cunningham C-3 coupe, once owned by the Petersen Automotive Museum but offered up for sale in August 2013 as part of its deaccession process, generated far more commentary than that. Today, just over two years later, the 1952 Cunningham C-3 coupe has been returned to its former three-tone glory, and next month it returns to the auction block as part of RM Sotheby’s Arizona sale.
Serial number 5208 was one of 25 Cunningham C-3 models (20 coupes and five cabriolets) bodied by Vignale in Italy. An early production car, likely the third or fourth assembled by Vignale, 5208 was first equipped with a Chrysler industrial engine, and was initially delivered with a single four-barrel carburetor instead of the typical four-carburetor setup used on all other C-3 models.
The coupe is significant for a few other reasons as well: It was raced in-period by a Cunningham employee, Phil Stiles, who ran it in SCCA competition at McDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida; it was the only C-3 delivered to an owner with 16-inch Borrani wire wheels (although it shipped to the U.S. wearing steel wheels); and it was among the most photographed examples in-period, gracing the pages of True’s Automobile Yearbook, Sports Cars in Color, Cars in Color, Sports Cars in Action, Sports & Classic Cars, and Motor Life.
Despite the photographic documentation of the car’s distinctive three-tone livery (light blue, metallic dark blue, and medium blue), 5208’s early history is rife with question marks. The first owner listed is Arthur B. Stuart, though a later update of the Cunningham Registry shows Alvin R. Jones as the car’s initial buyer. By 1955, the coupe had found its way back to the Briggs S. Cunningham Company in West Palm Beach, Florida, as it was sold (with spare parts) to Tony Oliverto in Texas when Cunningham closed shop later that same year. The Cunningham Registry shows that Oliverto installed a 1954 Chrysler 331 V-8, tuned to produce approximately 300 horsepower (and, presumably, fitted with the period-correct Cunningham intake and four-carburetor setup seen here). To save weight, Oliverto also removed the cars bumpers, instead substituting nerf bars made from rifle barrel stock.
From there, the ownership trail becomes a bit clearer. The car’s next steward was Dick Hoy, who purchased the coupe in the 1950s and sold it to the Petersen Museum in 2007. It’s believed that Hoy began the restoration process in the late 1980s, and the car was purchased by the museum in unrestored condition. Whether due to a lack of resource or a lack of funding, the Cunningham remained in this state up until the time of its 2013 sale, when a bidder paid a fee-inclusive $407,000 for the mostly complete, but unassembled C-3.
Enter Cunningham marque expert Tom Cotter, who was contacted by RM Restorations on behalf of the car’s current owner. Tom owns Cunningham C-3 coupe #5207, the car built immediately before this one, and graciously offered to loan RM his car to serve as a guide for the restoration of 5208. While much of the work (such as reassembling and painting the car) was relatively straightforward, certain pieces, such as the original bumpers and windshield, had to be recreated from scratch. Complicating matters, the objective was to complete the restoration in time for the 2015 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, giving RM Restorations just five months to complete the work.
The goal was met, and on August 16, 2015, chassis 5208 had its public reveal on the lawn at Pebble Beach, exhibited in the Postwar Cunninghams class. With the recent uptick in Cunningham prices (C-3 chassis 5206 sold for a fee-inclusive price of $869,000 at auction in 2015), the owner believes the time is right to again put the car on the market, and based upon its history and condition, RM Sotheby’s predicts a selling price between $900,000 and $1.1 million when the coupe crosses the stage next month in Phoenix.
For more information on the January 2016 Arizona sale, visit RMSothebys.com.
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