Monstrous LeMans-racing '50 Cadillac makes Quail debut

Not your father's Cadillac, indeed.

Amid the supercars, rare Ferraris with 7-figure values and other automotive exotica at a premier motorcar event here this week was a one-of-a-kind Cadillac that raced at LeMans in 1950.

"Le Monstre,'' the French auto world called it. It is an other-worldy Cadillac with a one-off body set on a virtually stock 1950 Series 61 Caddy chasis with a motor that had been hotrodded.

Built by a Long Island dealer for racing, the car's body was designed with the help of an aviation windtunnel and represents what was the state of the art in aerodynamics at mid-20th Century.

The car was raced at LeMans by the late, legendary driver, team owner and entrepreneur Briggs Cunningham, and lovingly presented by Cadillac on a stage at The Quail: A Motorsports Gathering, a premier event during the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance week in Monterey Bay.

Travis Washay, a professional race car driver and instructor who also serves as a historian and consultant for Cadillac, was showing the car and recounting its history for visitors to the Cadillac display at the event.

A longtime Caddy devote, even Washay was surprised to learn the car was still in existence and in the collection of Miles Collier and the Collier Automotive Museum in Florida.

Washay is familiar with the unique car's story: It was built by a Long Island Cadillac dealer, Frick-Tappett Motors. Cunningham himself drove it in the '50 race at LeMans and finished 11th, just behind another team Cadillac, in a closer to stock appearance.

So it wasn't' a podium finisher, but Washay says the 11th was remarkable because during the race Cunningham put the car's front fender into a sand bank. Under the rules at the time, the driver could have no assistance in getting back onto the track, and Cunningham spent 20 minutes digging the front of the car out of the sand by hand. Back on the track he roared past competitors toward the front.

The car has a 331-cubic-inch V-8 putting out 160 horsepower, weighing 3,705 pounds on a stock 122-inch wheelbase, though the body is 3 inches narrower than stock. Historic photos of the car at speed adorn the Cadillac display, alongside modern offerings from the GM brand.

Front the front the car has a gentle curve that recalls an airfoil, but from the side it is flat, almost slab-sided.

It's possible you could see this car on the road one day: it is street legal and carries a current Florida antique tag.