Briggs Cunningham 1950 Cadillac - Le Mans "Le Monstre"

[triumphfan]

The Briggs Cunningham team entered 2 cars in the 1950 Le Mans 24 hour race. One was a standard(ish) 1950 Series 61 Cadillac, the other was an experimental car with streamlined bodywork and subsequent weight reduction.

Unfortunately the streamliner car was involved in an 'off' resulting in time lost due to Cunningham actually having to dig the car out of the sand banking by hand.

The end result saw the standard body car finish in 10th place, one position ahead of Le Monstre. A failed experiment but one that left us with, well, a talking point at least!

Resin kit is from Roaring Replicars and was painted with Zero paints. Various details were added including the provision of recesses for the front and rear lights, bonnet straps and seatbelts from spare etch and tape, etc.

It would be great if a standard 1950 Cadillac kit was available in 1/24 scale, just to build and display alongside the monster. It would show what you can do with a load of steel tube, sheet metal and a little help from a Grumman aircraft engineer 😊

 

 

I do hope this hasn't hurt your eyes too much 🤣

 

Atb, Steve.

[ptcruiser]

Magnificent job Steve.

[triumphfan]

5 minutes ago, ptcruiser said:

Magnificent job Steve.

Thanks Rich.

Imagine if this had won Le Mans? Then you would have to have one 😉.

 

Atb, Steve.

[ptcruiser]

Who say's I haven't  

 

[triumphfan]

38 minutes ago, ptcruiser said:

Who say's I haven't  

 

Aha, you couldn't resist its charms then 😂

 

Atb, Steve.

[Mike]

A high-speed tissue box from the 50s! Lovely job of building and painting it

[triumphfan]

2 hours ago, Mike said:

A high-speed tissue box from the 50s! Lovely job of building and painting it

Thanks Mike. I have added this as a tag 😂

 

Atb, Steve.

[Toftdale]

Delicate certainly isn't a word you would associate with this beast, however your modelling skill definitely are - Andy 

[Spiny]

It definitely doesn't hurt my eyes. One of my favourite Le Mans cars, even if I have only seen the replica - you just have to love the way that form is completely ignored in the pursuit of function. And you've done a great job of building it up here into such a fine end result. Looks great to me.

 

And I hope you'll forgive the rather rubbish photo (fast cars and nighttime don't often play well with photography!) but I found this photo from 6 years ago at Le Mans Classic of the replica chasing another Cunningham (C4R) though Tertre Rouge:

 

[Kitkent]

An excellent model! The Roaring Replicas kit must be a very good quality kit. Perfectly built and it must be quite big…… Chris.

[triumphfan]

1 hour ago, Spiny said:

the replica chasing another Cunningham (C4R) though Tertre Rouge

Thanks Spiny. Love the photo, it makes the Caddy look like a hover car 😄

 

44 minutes ago, Kitkent said:

and it must be quite big…… Chris.

Cheers Chris. The model is quite hefty, it's about 7" long so Le Monstre must have been at least 14 feet in length. Probably shorter than the factory body though 😉

 

Atb, Steve.

[griffsrw]

Beautifully made Steve, it certainly looks the business. 

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Wow, what a car design! Wow, great model!

[klubman01]

That has come out very well.  Great workmanship on display.

Trevor

[Billy54]

Very nice build, I like it. The only thing that hurt my eyes was trying to figure out what the number was, a quick internet search confirmed that was 2, as opposed to a possible 9?

[Bengalensis]

Lovely work Steve! It's very well built and painted all over, but I especially appreciate the panel lines, the exhaust soot, the interior painting...  Very well done!

[Spiny]

22 hours ago, triumphfan said:

Thanks Spiny. Love the photo, it makes the Caddy look like a hover car 😄

 

 

Funnily enough, that was our thought when we saw it on track too. Oddly (and you model backs it up), it doesn't't have the hovercraft feel to the appearance when you see it stationary  - no idea why.

[kapam]

Another amazing model!

Very unusual (to me) and yet beautiful.

Almost looks more like a spacecraft than a race car! 🤔

[Renek]

I love Le Monstre, my scratch 1:12 engine...

[triumphfan]

12 hours ago, Renek said:

I love Le Monstre, my scratch 1:12 engine...

That's an impressive engine model. Are you going to build the rest of the car to go around it?

 

Atb, Steve.

[Renek]

54 minutes ago, triumphfan said:

That's an impressive engine model. Are you going to build the rest of the car to go around it?

 

Atb, Steve.

Oh nooo, it already happened….

 

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235099943-le-monstre-1950-scratch-build/#comment-4205267

 

Work...

 

Edited September 6, 2024 by Renek

[triumphfan]

9 hours ago, Renek said:

Oh nooo, it already happened….

Wow, I missed that one during my absence from the forum. Thanks for posting the link to an impressive scratchbuild. I am going to have a read through your wip later on.

 

Atb, Steve.

[Davi]

Nice work on a very interesting subject! If you would've said it was a speedboat, I'd buy that as well... Great details on the body!

[TommyOneTwoFour]

Great work on the "Phantom of the Hunaudières"! 😁

[PhilX]

A truly stunnig work ... 😍

 

PS : If as said, you want a 1:24 standard 1950 Cadillac, and if it doesn't comes as a kit, perhaps you can buy a Die-Cast and deconstruct it ... 🙂