[VIDEO] Ed Welburn Celebrates Legacy of Charlie Wiggins, Locates his Wiggins Special Race Car

For more than 90 years, one of the most important race cars in American motorsports history remained out of the public eye.

Now the Wiggins Special is back — preserved, not restored — and so is the remarkable story of the man who built and raced it.

The one-of-one race car is the centerpiece of a new exhibition at LeMay – America’s Car Museum in Tacoma, Washington, honoring Charlie Wiggins, a four-time champion who achieved racing greatness despite the barriers of segregation.

Helping bring Wiggins’ story back into the spotlight is a name well known to Corvette enthusiasts — Ed Welburn, who spent more than four decades at General Motors and eventually rose to vice president of global design, overseeing GM Design during the C6 and C7 Corvette eras and the early development of the revolutionary mid-engine C8.

In a Facebook video, Welburn helped uncover the Wiggins Special, noting that it marked the first time in more than 90 years that the public had seen the historic race car.

Wiggins was a driver, mechanic, innovator and race-car builder who constructed the Wiggins Special himself and drove it to four championships in the Gold & Glory Sweepstakes. His accomplishments came during an era when segregation prevented Black drivers from competing on many of America’s biggest racing stages.

Now Wiggins and his car are receiving renewed attention through For Gold & Glory: A Tribute to Charlie Wiggins, which opened Sept. 19 at LeMay – America’s Car Museum.

“Charlie Wiggins’ story represents exactly why museums like ours exist,” curator Bruce Patton said. “Automotive history is not only about the cars that were built or the races that were won, but about the people whose ingenuity, determination and courage shaped the culture around them.”

Patton said the exhibition provides an opportunity to introduce Wiggins’ accomplishments to a much wider audience and help restore his place in American motorsports history.

The original Wiggins Special provides a remarkable physical connection to that history.

The museum says the car had been lost from public view for more than 90 years before being recovered and acquired for the exhibition. Rather than restoring it to look new, the car has been preserved in its surviving form.

The campaign introducing the exhibition began Aug. 7 — exactly 100 years after Wiggins won the first of his four championships in the Wiggins Special.

Welburn is serving as guest curator for the exhibition, and his involvement adds another interesting automotive connection to the story.

Welburn spent more than four decades at General Motors and eventually rose to become the company’s vice president of global design, giving him influence over some of GM’s most important vehicles, including the Corvette. But his connection to the Wiggins project goes far beyond his professional résumé.

For Welburn, bringing Wiggins’ story to a new generation is personal.

“Charlie Wiggins was so much more than just a great race car driver,” Welburn said. “He was a brilliant mechanic, an innovator, a craftsman, and a champion who achieved extraordinary accomplishments despite barriers that should never have been placed in his way.”

Welburn said he has carried Wiggins’ story with him for many years.

“Seeing it come to life through For Gold & Glory is deeply personal,” he said. “My hope is that people walk into this exhibition not knowing his name and leave inspired by his story and unbelievable perseverance.”

That may ultimately be the most important purpose of the exhibition.

Race cars are often remembered for how fast they went, the races they won or the famous drivers who sat behind their steering wheels.

The Wiggins Special is more than that.

It is the surviving creation of a talented mechanic, innovator and racer who refused to let the restrictions of his era keep him from building cars, competing and winning.

More than nine decades after the public last saw his remarkable creation, Charlie Wiggins’ race car has finally returned to the spotlight.

And this time, so has the man who built it.

Source:
Le May Automotive Museum

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