Daytona International Raceway, January 25 -28, 2018
The two cars above on display at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona are 1950 Series 61 Cadillacs. The one on the right raced in the 1950 24 hours of LeMans. The one on the left is a recreation of the standard bodied car that also raced that year as part of the two car team.
Briggs Cunningham was a gentleman racer living in Palm Beach, Florida. He decided to contest the world's premier sports car endurance race and selected Cadillacs as the car to use, partly due to the newly developed overhead valve V-8 engine which Cadillac introduced in 1949. LeMans very tight rules allowed cars to be rebodied if the chassis remained stock, so Cunningham enlisted an airplane aerodynamist to design a body for the Cadillac chassis to be lighter and reduce wind resistance. The Cadillac roadster was born.
The resulting design is odd to the eye, in 1950 as well as today. The French named the car Le Monstre - the monster. The redesigned body did produce improved performance as Le Monstre was 13 mph faster on the long straights than the standard bodied car. The engines were stock except for the intake systems. Le Monstre sported 5 carburetors. The roadster was driven by Briggs Cunningham and Phil Walters, entered officially as a Cadillac Spider. The standard bodied Coupe de Ville was driven by Miles and Sam Collier, brothers known for racing MGs.
LeMonster did not live up to its full potential. An off track excursion put the car into a sandbank.. Cunningham, who had ignored Miles Collier's suggestion to carry a folding shovel in the car, had to dig the car out by hand. Later, the transmission lost all but top gear. It did finish, respectfully, in 11th place overall, one place behind the Collier brothers Cadillac. Note that Le Monstre carries a Florida plate and can be driven on the road. The car race number is a French version of digit two.
Briggs Cunningham returned to Le Mans in subsequent years, but in cars of his own design and carrying his name.
The reason these historic Cadillacs were at Daytona? Cadillac is again racing their cars in competition.
The new Cadillac can be described as a monster, also. It is a monster on the track, crushing the competition, running in the lead most of the race.
Aerodynamics have changed greatly in the almost six decades since Briggs Cunningham took his Cadillac roadster to Le Mans, France.
Aerodynamic designers are still looking to reduce wind resistance, to allow the car to slip through the air as easy as possible, and they are also looking to create downforce, making the air push the car down on the track, increasing grip and cornering speeds.
The large holes in the bodywork over the tires are not designed to reduce wind resistance nor produce downforce. The holes keep the cars from flying. At the 1999 Le Mans race, a Mercedes prototype race car took off from the racing surface and flew over the trees in the forest next to the track. As the Mercedes came over a rise in the track, air got under the car and the shape of the body made it a flying wing. The other Mercedes were pulled from the race. The large voids over the tires release air pressure that might build under the car creating lift.
Cadillac's efforts at Daytona were successful this year. This is the view other drivers had of the Cadillacs. This number 5 car won the race, setting a new record for miles covered in 24 hours.
