An afternoon with John Fitch

In my line of work, I get the chance to talk with many legends of the auto industry – men who have shaped automotive history in some way in the pursuit of speed, safety, profit, fame, glory or their own ideas of what is right and wrong, automobile-wise. A few months ago, I was lucky enough to have spoken with John Fitch for a Hot Rod Hero article in Hemmings Muscle Machines, and when he invited me down to his place in Lime Rock, Connecticut, I jumped at the chance to meet him in person.

John, at 92, has done just about everything. Briefly, he studied engineering, quit college, visited Europe before World War II, trained as a fighter pilot, was shot down in the war and held as a POW, owned an MG dealership back in the States, sailed around the Gulf of Mexico for a year, raced for Briggs Cunningham, Chevrolet and Mercedes at pretty much every track in North America and Europe, invented the Fitch Safety Barrier, tuned Corvairs, tried to build his own limited-production sports car, helped found and manage Lime Rock Park and written and talked extensively on all of the above.

And he’s still very active. Tall and lean as ever, he greeted me at the door in no less than a red blazer, plaid wool pants, dapper cap and his tie tucked in between the buttons of his shirt. He apologized for the disarray of his house – his wife died recently, and he’s reverted to a bachelor lifestyle, with papers stacked everywhere. He produced a stack of envelopes from his blazer pocket and said he carried them around to jot down ideas and notes – eventually, the stack grows too big for the pocket, so he wraps the stack in a rubber band and starts a new collection of notes. Though he’s donated some of his effects to the Saratoga Auto Museum, memorabilia from a lifetime of involvement in sports cars – photographs, posters, car show placards, programs from honorary events, trophies tarnished over time – hang around the place like forgotten friends. John seems less interested in nostalgia than in whatever activity he may be currently engaged in. “I have my own priorities,” he said.

That includes the fight over the two 1,000-gallon fuel oil tanks on his property, represented by a giant mound of earth in his front yard. John said the tanks were there when he moved in more than 50 years ago, and he never knew about them until relatively recently. When he did discover them, he noticed the level of fuel oil was dropping – seeping into the ground through the corroding tanks – so he contacted the proper authorities – the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, which in turn demanded that he clean up the property. On his own dime, and to a six-figure tune. “It’s government tyranny,” he said. “I probably shouldn’t have reported it.”

But the day I visited, the mound of earth was covered with a giant white tarp, and John was more interested in discussing other matters, like his Phoenix, which also suffered from government intervention – specifically the National Traffic and Motor Safety Vehicle Act of 1966. Thus, despite plenty of orders for the Phoenix, John was only ever able to build one, based on his tuned Corvair chassis with a 1mm-thick steel body by Intermeccanica, and it remains largely in original condition today, with just a repaint in recent decades.

In fact, John wanted to take me out for a spin in it. It sounded about as rumpity as a Corvair flat-six could, and John had enormous fun showing off the torque of the engine, surging forward, backing off and surging forward again. No big block, but certainly no ‘Vair. He pulled up next to a truck outside the Lime Rock Park gates and asked the driver whether the design looked dated. “Do you think it would appeal to sports car buyers today?” he asked. John previously shared that he would consider selling the Phoenix to a certain collector, but in such a case would want to retain the rights to the car’s styling for a possible second shot at production. “Any front-wheel-drive powertrain in production would work for it instead of the Corvair’s,” he said. “I think the car is well-named; it might rise from the ashes.”

John keeps the Phoenix in a one-car garage attached to his 1767 house, but had a couple other cars he wanted to show me. One, parked in his post-and-beam barn beside his daily driver Mercedes station wagon, was his Consulier GTP, which he’s owned since new. The street version of the Consulier, it’s powered by a turbocharged and intercooled Chrysler 2.2L four-cylinder engine. He handed me the keys and pointed me toward the town of Lakeville. “I rarely drive it because I’m ashamed to be seen in it,” he said. “Women, children and some eccentric males love it. I think it’s ugly. But it goes like hell.”

I listened to him reminisce about racing as we ate a late brunch. After our test drive in the Consulier, he directed me toward a diesel-powered Mercedes sedan that he said he bought new in Stuttgart and brought to the States. He then added a Fitch fuel catalyst, an Evans waterless pressureless cooling system and modified the emergency brake to work on each rear wheel independently. “Works great in the snow now!” he said. Sitting in the side yard, it hadn’t run in a while and the tall grass underneath it had accelerated the rust along the rockers. John admitted the brake lines had rusted through as well, and wasps and hornets greeted us when the hood was lifted. Still, with a jumpstart on the battery, the diesel clattered to life. John ran it for a few minutes, proud that it didn’t emit any diesel smoke, then shut it down, headed inside and rested for a while.

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