This 1960 Corvette Crashed at Le Mans. Now It May Fetch $2.5 Million.

Rewind to June of 1960 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Representing the Stars and Stripes was a trio of newly prepared Chevrolet Corvettes entered by American race-car builder and heir to the Proctor and Gamble fortune, Briggs Swift Cunningham. Here was the U.S.A. taking on the might of Europe, going head-to-head against such titans as Ferrari, Aston Martin, Porsche, and Jaguar.

Cunningham himself would make the famed sprint across the track to start the race, taking the first stint behind the wheel. He was piloting Corvette No. 1, chassis No. 3535, together with Bill Kimberley, whose family co-owned consumer-goods giant Kimberly-Clark.  

Running strong in the opening laps, Cunningham pulled into the pits on lap 26 for the first driver change. Kimberly took over and kept up the pace. But after six laps of the famed Circuit de la Sarthe, Kimberly crested the hill just after the Arnage corner and hit a sudden downpour. The Corvette hydroplaned off the track and rolled end over end. Amazingly, it landed right side up and Kimberly walked away unscathed. The car, however, suffered an engine fire, melted wiring, and crumpled bodywork. Its race was over.

Yet the legend of the Corvette Le Mans (LM) No. 1 has never faded, despite subsequently being locked away for more than four decades. Now, fresh out of a two-year restoration at a cost of more than $500,000, the famous race car—currently part of the Cunningham family’s collection—is being offered to the public. Chassis No. 3535 will cross the block at the RM Sotheby’s Monterey Auction, running August 13 through 15, during Northern California’s Monterey Car Week.

“This car belongs in the very best collection of great American sports racers, alongside the greatest Shelby Cobra, the greatest Le Mans–winning GT40, the greatest Gurney Eagle,” says Harvey Stanley, director of Private Sales for RM Sotheby’s. “This is the American Ferrari 250 GTO, only rarer,” he tells Robb Report.

The backstory of this famous Corvette is almost as compelling as its Le Mans appearance. According to the RM Sotheby’s research team, Cunningham was approached in the fall of 1959 by top General Motors engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov, known as the “Godfather of the Corvette,” with a plan to take a team of  Corvettes to Le Mans.

But there was a catch. While Chevrolet would support the effort, that fact couldn’t be made public because of a ban on American automakers competing at Le Mans after the devastating 1955 disaster that claimed the lives of over 80 spectators. So the three Corvettes were supplied to Cunningham through New York–based Chevy dealer Don Allen Midtown Chevrolet. The cars then went to the Alfred Momo race shop in Queens, N.Y., where the stock engines were replaced with race-spec, fuel-injected small-block V-8s provided by Arkus-Duntov’s engineering team.

The cars were also given lightweight Halibrand magnesium wheels and Firestone racing tires, Koni competition shocks, a bigger fuel tank with twin fuel pumps, a side-exit racing exhaust, and two hip-hugging bucket seats from a Douglas C-47 Skytrain aircraft. After shakedown testing at the 12 Hours of Sebring race in 1960—when chassis No. 3535 retired after 41 laps with engine problems—the cars were shipped to France aboard Cunard’s RMS Queen Elizabeth. After Le Mans, the Corvettes were shipped back stateside, again in style aboard the Queen Elizabeth liner. Once in New York, the race engines were returned to GM and the cars sold.

Chassis No. 3535 went to Marshall “Perry” Boswell Jr. of Delray Beach, Fla. He set about repairing the vehicle, deciding to dramatically alter the styling, giving the car a single-headlight look—similar to the Corvette model of 1956 and ‘57—adding a redesigned grille, a hood scoop, and a reshaped rear end. He also painted it black and fitted it with chrome wheels.

In 1966, Boswell sold the car to Florida-based paint shop owner Robert Lee Bollinger, who resprayed the car yellow. A decade later, after the car changed hands a few more times, it was bought by Richard Carr, in St. Petersburg, Fla., who simply tucked it away. It stayed out of the public eye for the next 40 years.

Fast forward to 2011. While Carr’s son was handling the estate of his late father, he discovered the now burgundy-painted Corvette in a warehouse. Research by Cunningham historian Larry Berman confirmed it as chassis No. 3535.

A decade later, the near-derelict Corvette was auctioned at the RM Sotheby’s 2021 Amelia Island sale, selling for $785,000. It was bought by the Cunningham family, who immediately commissioned a full body-off restoration with Corvette expert and top restorer Kevin Mackay and his team at Corvette Repair, Inc., in Valley Stream, N.Y.

“The car was a train wreck when we got it, with strange bodywork, most of the interior missing, and burgundy paint. The chassis, though, was intact, as were the doors. But we remade everything, taking over 5,000 hours,” says Mackay.

It helped that he had previously restored Cunningham’s Corvette No. 3 from the Le Mans effort, and was able to duplicate many of the components, helped by his exhaustive research. “It was a great day when we showed the Cunningham family the finished car,” says Mackay. “It was a special moment celebrating the legacy of Briggs Cunningham with the very car he drove at Le Mans brought back to life.” The moment was repeated when Mackay helped assemble all three Le Mans Cunningham Corvettes for a special display at The Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in 2023.

Stanley, of RM Sotheby’s, describes the car as “One of the most historically significant Corvettes ever offered to the public, and a car that helped cement the Corvette’s reputation of ‘America’s Sports Car.’ It’s certainly a special car to be offered during America’s 250th Anniversary year.” According to RM Sotheby’s, the estimated value of this Corvette ranges from $2 million to $2.5 million.

Click here to see more photos of this 1960 Chevrolet Corvette LM.