This is the Briggs Cunningham Jaguar E-Type driven by Briggs Cunningham and Roy Salvadori at the 1962 "24 Hours of Le Mans" endurance race. This is an original marker drawing from a photograph in the book "Sports Car Racing, In Camera, 1960-69" by Paul Parker. The artwork is on medium texture Fredrix canvas sheet.
Cunningham and Salvadori finished 4th overall at the 1962 Le Mans endurance race.
Briggs Cunningham was certainly a very rich guy, having inherited a lot of money from his father, who was a successful businessman. Briggs was passionate about sail boat racing (he won the America's Cup in 1958) and sports car racing. Le Mans was probably where he wanted to win the most, maybe to prove to the Europeans that American cars with American drivers could win there. Cunningham got famous at Le Mans in 1950 for his Cadillac based cars that certainly drew attention. One in particular will remain in the annals of Le Mans as probably the weirdest/ugliest looking car ever to run there (nicknamed "Le Monstre" aka "The Monster" by the French). For a while, Cunningham built his own race cars (and production cars for the richer public) in his West Palm Beach factory. It was closed down in 1955. Right at that time (it's probably not a coincidence), he became the official Jaguar distributor for the East Coast and started to use the D-Types and later, the E-Types, for racing purposes. It is said that Briggs Cunningham was the first to paint racing stripes on his cars. The Cunningham "blue on white" stripes, the United States racing colors, would later show up on Caroll Shelby's race cars.
Roy Salvadori raced only twice for team Briggs Cunningham. He's probably best remembered for his victory at Le Mans in 1959 with Carroll Shelby but he was quite the accomplished Formula One driver, having raced at the top level from 1952 to 1962.
Prints and greeting cards are available at Jaguar E-Type Cunningham/Salvadori 1962 on fineartamerica.com.
