In Scottsdale this January, Bonhams will auction the Lister-Jaguar that Team Cunningham campaigned to the Sports Car Club of America’s 1959 C-Modified national championship with racing legend Walt Hansgen at the wheel. Lister-Jaguar chassis BHL-123 is a car rich in backstory, a star in a difficult transition period for sports car racing. BHL-123 proved its mettle in-period, and later had a long and successful career in vintage racing. This is a car to buy and thoroughly enjoy, not to collect dust. Drive the wheels off it as often as possible.
Briggs Swift Cunningham is arguably the greatest sportsman America has ever produced. Cunningham is in most regards the spiritual father of all Americans who love sports cars and sports car racing. He’s our Moses. His father was a financier who backed Cooper Procter and Norris Gamble. He was a founding member of the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA), precursor of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), which thrives to this day. Cars bearing the Cunningham name contested the Le Mans 24-hour race and the other great endurance races of the early 1950s, flying American colors. Cunningham successfully defended the America’s Cup in 1958 with his 12-meter yacht, Columbia. After letting go construction of his own race cars in the mid 1950s, Cunningham campaigned the best sports cars of the day, including Jaguar D-types.
For 1958, big-bore racing engines were banned in European sport car racing, rendering the brilliant Jaguar D-type irrelevant, along with all the large-displacement Maserati V8 and Ferrari V12 sports-racers. Many of these cars migrated to the U.S., to race for several more years.
For the 1958 U.S. racing season, Briggs Cunningham took delivery of two “Knobbly” Lister-Jaguars, and his driver Walt Hansgen won the SCCA C-Modified championship. The Listers were nicknamed “Knobbly” because of their curvaceous bodywork that seemed to be melted over the contours of the front tires and engine. The Lister Knobbly proved surprisingly successful racing against Italy’s best.
Encouraged by success with the Knobbly Lister, for 1959 Cunningham purchased two Costin-bodied Lister-Jaguars. And here the backstory grows more interesting, touching the paths of several racing greats. Francis Albert “Frank” Costin was an aerodynamicist who had learned his licks at the De Havilland Aircraft Company. Frank Costin was engaged by Lotus founder Colin Chapman to develop bodywork for the 1958 Vanwall Grand Prix car, which claimed the Formula One manufacturer’s championship that year (Mike Hawthorn claimed the world driving title in a Ferrari Dino). It’s important to note that Frank Costin’s brother, Mike, founded Cosworth with partner Keith Duckworth—hence “Cos-Worth”—creators of the Ford-Cosworth V8 that dominated Formula One for more than a decade and found a second life in Indy car racing. Considering ties formed at Vanwall with Colin Chapman, Costin’s design of the Lotus Eleven’s envelope bodywork is little surprise.
BHL-123 first turned a wheel in anger at the 1959 12 Hours of Sebring. Stirling Moss and two-time Le Mans winner Ivor Bueb shared driving duties. The car circulated as high as third place, but ran out of fuel on the course and was subsequently disqualified for illegal refueling and accepting outside assistance, a failure attributable to Moss’s impetuous nature. Dan Gurney’s Ferrari 250 TR 59 went on to victory.
With Hansgen at the wheel, BHL-123 achieved glory, carrying Hansgen to another SCCA C-Modified national championship. At the end of the 1959 racing season, Cunningham sold BHL-123, choosing not to keep it as part of his burgeoning collection, which today forms the core of the Revs Institute in Naples, Florida.
The front clip tilts forward to present a 3.8-liter Jaguar straight six breathing through three Weber two-barrel carburetors, producing about 300 horsepower at just over 6000 rpm. The hood has been modified with addition of a clear panel to show the beauty of the engine, but one can install a complete hood. Listers have four-wheel disc brakes, the rears mounted inboard. Lister-Jaguars weigh about 1700 pounds, so performance is lively.
Owned by the father of American sports car racing, Briggs Cunningham, and driven by several of the best British and American sports car racers of the day, Team Cunningham’s Lister-Jaguar chassis BHL-123 holds a significant place in American sports car history.
