John Fitch: The Greatest Driver You’ve Never Heard Of

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Hello everybody, welcome back to Past Gas. Today we're talking about John Fitch,

a little-known hero of automotive motorsport. This guy flew P-51 Mustangs in World War II.

Joe got me a P-51. I'm very stoked on. Thank you, Joe. That's Joe over there.

John Fitch was captured by the Nazis, went to a PwCamp, came back, started racing cars with

Juan Manuel Fangio, and also bore witness to one of the most terrific accidents in racing

history and devoted his life to making racing and driving safer for everybody. So there's a

great episode. Let's get right into it. Sarth France, 1955. The Mercedes-Benz racing team has a lot to

be excited about as they prepare for the 24 hours of Le Mans. Their star drivers, Juan Manuel Fangio

and Sterling Moss, had guided Mercedes' powerful new car, 300 SLR, to a 1-2 finish at the Mila

Miglia only a month earlier. While their new teammate, American John Fitch, had finished an

admirable fifth, John Fitch was born for speed. His heroics as a fighter pilot in World War II

and racing success in the years that followed had led to this incredible moment. He was now a member

of arguably the greatest racing team of all time. But that weekend would be remembered for

something different than great racing, a tragedy that would change the landscape,

racing forever, and John Fitch's life. So who was this relatively unknown race car driver

that shared a driver seat with two of the best drivers of the era? How is he essential to Chevrolet's

rise in worldwide racing? And how does his revolutionary work affect us today?

This and more today on PASSGAS, the best race car driver you've never heard of, John Fitch.

Welcome to the show, everybody. This is PASSGAS. We're an automotive history show.

Thanks for joining us. My name is Nolan Sykes, joining me, as always, across from me at the

table. It's Bart Bidlingmeyer wearing an MG shirt. Yep. Very cool. I've noticed you like to

comment on what shirts I'm wearing. It's just the first thing that comes to mind. You look the same

every week, but your shirt changes. Wow. Fair. It's got the Union Jack on there and the MG logo.

And is that MGB Roadster? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Cool. Nice. And Joe Weber to my left. I know

what you're thinking. Wow, unc deadass crashing out right now. Negative 1000 aura. Right?

Yeah. Thanks. I was thinking, I'm glad somebody said it. I'm trying to be more Gen Z, okay?

I think that's Gen Alpha. That's Gen Alpha? I think so. I'm not really sure. Yeah. It's

between Z and A. I really don't want to be one of those guys that complains about

younger generations. Here we are. Well, no, I'm not gonna, I didn't have a complaint at all.

No, no, no. Roll the tape back. I feel like so much of my

adolescence was just like littered with boomers complaining about millennials and I

aspire not to be the same. Yeah, do whatever you want. That's what I say. That's what you say.

Go for it, kids. Yeah, go for it. It's weird. I don't have anything wrong with,

I don't have a problem with Gen X or Gen Z. The only thing I have a problem with

with Gen X is that all of the movies that came out in like the late 90s were like,

I have such a stable job, but it's boring. So I'm gonna blow my world up.

And I just wish I had that stability, you know? You do. You worked here for like five, six years.

I know. Time to blow it up. I have great health insurance. Time to blow it up. Yeah.

Eternity leaf. Eternity leaf. But it's boring. It's so boring. Okay. Guys, we record these a

little ahead of time. Have you guys seen the F1 movie yet? No. No. Did you see it? I did see it.

Good for you. Have you seen it? No, I heard it was great though. Oh. What do you think? No.

That was like a bless your heart energy right there. Well, look, the racing is good.

The racing for like all the in-car stuff is sick. Yeah. And you know, like, yeah,

there's a few things where F1 fan would be like, that's not how it happens. But I did not like it.

All right. Good to know. Yeah. Save me a trip. Is there a scene where George Russell's like

to Brad Pitt, he's like, maybe next year, Boogie. No. No.

No. Not a lot of... Who is in it, right? He is in it. I don't know if you hear any

current drivers speak. Yeah, you'd have to give him more money.

Does Carlos does? Okay. There's a funny moment. Okay. I don't even remember that. I do remember

there's a funny scene where like the Ricky driver's like in the club and he's talking

to this girl and she's like, can you introduce me to Carlos Sines? That got a hearty chuckle out

of me. Nice. Did you see it in theaters? I did. Yeah. Was it packed or were you the only one?

No, there's a lot of people there. No, yeah. It was so packed we had to like be in the

like the second row. What? So like I'm like looking up. Hasn't it been out for like a

couple of weeks now? Yeah. That's what I thought was surprising. Good for the support.

Good for... Sort of. My main issue with the movie is that it's really written for people who have no

idea what... Of course. Well, but I mean like that's... It's not surprising, I guess, but like in

the environment that we're in where or in the world where drive to survive has been out

for it's going on. It's sixth season now I think when this season ends. I think they're

filming the seventh right now. Okay, seventh. Yeah. So there's tons of this material

out. Like people have... Americans especially have had a lot of time to like

ingest the sport and get to know it, but... Even passively. Even passively. Yeah. So

I don't know. I guess I shouldn't be surprised because it is a huge movie with huge budget

and they don't want... They want to like appeal to maybe a more global audience. Yeah.

So they got to like explain a lot of things, but... These are the wheels. You're going to need

some wheels if you want to be happy. There's literally parts like that. It was pretty funny.

Also, I feel like it kind of undermines a lot of stuff that F1 and the FIA have been trying to like

do for the sport over the past couple of years. Like change... Like get it away from the old

Bernie Ecclestone kind of mentality, but there's parts where... Is there corruption? No corruption.

There's no corruption, but there is like... There's a scene the team's like technical or...

Technical director maybe? Or like the designer of the car is a woman and there's a part where

Brad Pitt goes to like a pub with the designer and like... It's like implied that he's asking

like who she had to sleep with to get the job. I'm like that's a weird thing to keep in the

movie. And then of course they like have like a romance plot and stuff. And there's like a woman

mechanic on the team and like she's the... What? She's like doing the tire gun thing. And like,

of course, she's like the only person who like messes up during a pit stop. And like you never

see her get like a redemption arc or anything. Classic woman f***ing up the pit stop. And

I was like... I thought we had like we have... F1s had multiple initiatives over the past like

five ever since Liberty Media took over the rights to the sport. Like there's been a lot of

initiatives like get more women into the sport, but then we're really undercutting that on a huge

global stage with this stupid movie where the dialogue is like insanely bad. It's like,

okay, I hope that was worth it. But the cameras are cool though, right? The cameras are

cool. So I guess no complaints. No, it was... The driving's awesome. Everything else is... I don't

know. I was just like, I woke up the next morning like angry actually. Yeah. At how about this movie?

Because your hopes are so high, huh? My hopes... I mean, I didn't go see it like opening. I was like,

okay, this will be interesting. But yeah, I mean, it's kind of... It's disappointing, I guess.

I guess all I've heard about is not the movie as a whole, but like the action parts of it that are

good. Yeah, everyone talks about the action being good, but ignoring the rest, the other two hours

of the film, which are like... It's like a two and a half hour movie. It's crazy. Do they drive...

Do they drive over like through downtown Miami and the... No, not like driven. Under the

force under the car. Oh, yeah. It's so strong that it pulls off the manhole covers.

No, none of that. No, they don't do that, right? Is there a part where Brad Pitt texts a picture

of his nipple to the designer of the car? No, no. Yeah, it's just... I don't know.

All right. It was bad. How many revs do you give it out of six revs?

I give it 3,000 RPM out of 10,000 RPM. Nice.

So anyway, with that out of the way, let's talk about death. Let's talk about some death. Yes. So

from the day he was born on August 4th, 1917, in Indianapolis, Indiana, John Fitch had a natural

curiosity about all things mechanical. Even as a child, he was obsessed with how engines worked

and was especially fascinated by the ones that powered airplanes. This passion was in John's blood

as he was a descendant of another brilliant engineering mind by the same name, John Fitch,

who invented the steamboat in the mid 1700s. Whoa. Legacy. Legacy. John's stepfather, James,

worked at the Stutz Motor Company, we've talked about them before, and exposed his son to

automotive culture very early on. He took them to air shows and gave John aviation magazines to

learn more about design and engineering. John's mom, Mary, believed in giving him the best education

possible. So she sent him to the prestigious Chote boarding school in Connecticut. Chote

birding screw. I knew somebody who went to Chote. Really? Yep. And? Very smart,

talented, capable young woman. All right. Nice. Fitch wasn't a great student. He was restless

and more drawn to mechanical tinkering and hands on problem solving than the rigid world of academia.

This blasé attitude would continue in college as he was enrolled in both Lehigh and MIT for

engineering, but never completed his degree. From Chote to MIT? Dude, don't sleep on Chote.

It's a good school, I guess. It's very, it is like really prestigious and it's,

you know, the Rockefellers would send their kid there. Would it be weird to go like at this age?

You could go back to school at any time. Rodney Dangerfield did it.

It looks like tuition is $72,000 a year. Wow. If you're boarding there,

but if you're just there for the day, it's $55,000 a year. Oh, that's a deal for boarding,

then. Yeah. For the extra $20,000, you get a bed and a room and maybe start thinking about that for

Wyatt. You want to go to Chote? I want to start asking him that. His third word is Chote. After

Pearl Harbor was attacked in December of 1941, Fitch felt compelled to enlist in the Air Force

to both serve his country and fulfill his aviation dreams. A little two for one.

As a fighter pilot for the eighth Air Force, Fitch flew bombing missions across Europe

in both P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs. Oh, that reminds me. You like P-51 Mustangs,

right? I sure do. Love those. I got you these cool things. What is this?

Metal Earth, Steel Model Kit. Oh, I've seen those. Yeah.

Steel Model Kit. I got myself a little Swarovski helicopter. What's it called?

I would love a Swarovski helicopter. No, it sounds like Swarovski, but it's not.

This is sick. Thank you, Joe. Yeah, man. This is very cool. It's kind of hard.

If you don't have great motor skills, it's kind of hard to not bend pieces.

But anyways, this helicopter is taking me forever. How is it to build?

Because I've seen those and been like, that looks really interesting.

It's pretty fun. I was like, I could probably handle it. There's a scale on the back that says

like harder. Oh, yeah. This is almost to the hard. Yeah.

Yeah. So am I looking at that? I think you'll be good at it. But I get kind of frustrated and I

like... Oh, dude. They've got the U2 spy plane. Oh, yeah. I think that's a...

I think that might be a P-47 there. I think that's the Liberator B-24.

Oh, that would be cool. And then the whatever the red baron flew. I don't know what that one is.

The quality of the metal and printing on it is really cool, though.

This is sick, dude. Thank you very much. It's going to go right on my desk.

Hell, yeah. Never to be built.

No, it's a tin snips, though. Tin snips. Okay.

Because I'm trying to like pop it out of the thing and I keep bending it. And I was

like, man, if I had a little tiny wire cutter or something like that, that would help.

Excellent. Hell, yeah. So I'll get you one next time.

Thanks, Joe. Yeah. I mean, I can go to Hobby Lobby.

As the war was drawing to a close, he was shot down behind enemy lines in Germany.

After bailing out of his Mustang, Fitch was captured by the Nazis and put in a POW camp.

After only a few weeks, he attempted to escape, but was caught, which resulted in

him being transferred to an even more grueling camp. Fitch said, quote,

being a prisoner of war is not just a test of physical endurance.

The mental part of surviving is harder than the physical. You learn to cope with isolation,

fear, and the uncertainty of what comes next. This dude's a badass, man.

Fortunately, in April of 1945, his camp was liberated by American forces,

and Fitch was awarded numerous medals upon his return to the US.

Fitch reflected, quote, the human spirit is more resilient than I ever could have imagined.

What we went through in those camps taught me that there's always something to hold on to

even when everything else is taken away. That reminds me of John McCain spent like

yeah five years or something. I don't remember how long, but yeah,

it's a long time. That's why he's like that. I'm sure probably hung him by his arms.

He doesn't talk about it. Well, he's dead. I mean, he didn't. He didn't really dwell.

Oh, yeah. No, that was why his arms were like that because he tortured him.

Oh, man. You know, he got a good tally going on wherever he was sleeping. He had a hit

scratched into the wall. You sent me something about his wife liking drifting.

Yeah. That's crazy. I think it's a Sylvia. Oh, yeah, I saw that drift.

That's awesome. I don't know if she still does it.

Let us know if you want Cindy McCain. Come on, pass gas.

Yeah, sure. So when 27-year-old John Fitch returned home from the war,

let's have her on. Why not? We'll be right back after these messages.

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the right help. Sometimes you don't even know where to start. But Angie's been connecting people

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done well. Angie gives you access to a nationwide network of tradespeople with the right skills,

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That's A-N-G-I dot com. Now back to the show.

When 27-year-old John Fitch returned home from the war, like so many other soldiers,

he needed to figure out what was next. He was passionate about speed, engineering,

and precision, so he decided to open a small MG dealership in White Plains, New York.

Bart? Nice. Did you know that? I had a feeling.

British sports cars were just starting to carve out a niche in the States,

and Fitch's instinct to specialize in Jags and MGs proved to be a smart move.

As his business steadily grew, so did Fitch's itch for racing.

And he began competing with a few of the cars he was selling at tracks in the northeast,

like Watkins Glen and Bridgehampton, New York. As Fitch gained confidence, he wanted to go

faster. In 1950, he raced a Fiat 1100 with a Ford Flathead Swap, which he soon modified

into the Fitch Model B, and ended the year by driving the fastest production car at the time,

the Jaguar XK120 in the first Sebring Endurance race. Fitch's itch for Jags started it, Joe.

The next year, John entered the Argentine Grand Prix for production cars

within a large Cadillac J2 and 1, this victory would change John's life forever,

as it caught the eye of several of the racing world's biggest names,

Briggs Cunningham among them, who signed Fitch and immediately put him to work.

Briggs Cunningham invented racing stripes. Oh yeah, on the, some Shelby or something like that?

It was a Cadill, or one of his Cadillacs, I think.

And they were blue? I remember this was one of the first wheel houses.

Yeah, white cars with blue racing stripes.

Fitch's brilliant driving instincts translated perfectly to the big stage,

particularly in endurance races. He had a keen ability to avoid risk, strategize a long course,

and get the car across the finish line in one piece, which resulted in strong finishes at

Sebring, the Milamiglia and Le Mans, while also becoming the first sports car club of America,

SCCA national champion. Have you ever heard of this guy before?

No. Isn't it kind of crazy?

Yeah. No, I was not familiar with this dude. 1953 was Fitch's brightest year yet,

as he was named sports car driver of the year by speed age magazine after finding success in a variety

of international races, including the Italian Grand Prix, the Eleban and with the Nash Healy

factory team at the Milamiglia. He also took his rookie test for the Indy 500 and a win

at Sebring with co-driver Phil Walters. In late 1954, Fitch joined the Mercedes-Benz team as a factory

driver, along with Juan Manuel Fangio, Carl Kling and Sterling Moss. This was arguably the most

formidable racing team of all time, dominating all levels of competition from Formula One

to the Carrera Panamericana. It's like being drafted onto the Golden State Warriors.

Yeah. And you're just like, whoa, curry? Is that stuff over there?

Pretty, I mean, yeah. Yeah. So this would be like the 2016 Warriors, basically.

Yeah. I mean, you're just like a schmuck. I mean, you're not a schmuck, but you're not sure what

you're doing there. Right. I understand what you mean. Basically, like a reverse brawny.

You know what I'm saying? The team was behind the wheel of what Fitch described as Mercedes' new,

quote, ferocious racing car, the 300 SLR. Made of a magnesium alloy, the SLR's body was extremely

light and its fuel-injected three-liter straight-six engine proved more than capable after Fangio

and Sterling Moss finished first and second into 1955 Milamiglia with Fitch coming in fifth

overall. I wonder what it is about three-liter inline-sixes. The inline-six is a very balanced

engine. I get that. Yes, yes. It's three liters, like the perfect sweet spot where you can still

rev really fast, but it still makes a lot of power. I wonder what a six-liter inline-six

would be like. That'd be a liter per cylinder. That'd be gnarly. That'd be crazy. Yeah, that'd be

pretty big. That's a lot of Fago. That's how I think of cylinders heads in terms of liters of Fago.

Yes. That's how you know how much it is. Well, we've been saying that for years,

and it came up because we were talking about how there used to be three-liter Fagos.

Oh, yeah. But I can't find any evidence of there ever being a three-liter Fago bottle.

Aren't there two-liter Fagos, though? Yeah. There are. I remember there being

three-liter bottles in general. I won't speak to Fago, but I remember. Well, here we go,

right here. Fago root beer, three-liter. You can buy it right now.

Yeah. Whoa. Dang, Fago root beer. Where is it at? This is from Namdaimun Farmer's Market.

Fine and dead. Just a retail and wholesale international food store. That's pretty funny

that when they were trying to make the switch over to metric, we kept liters of cola.

Yeah. Everything else is a gallon of milk. I'll have an eight cup of

root beer, pints, quarts, gallons of everything else. Yeah. Mercedes and John Fitch were on a roll.

However, their good fortune was about to run out. By June of 1955, Mercedes-Benz Racing

was the hottest team in the world. And as the stage was set for the 24 hours of Le Mans,

they had no reason to believe that it would be anything other than an easy win

at the Cirque de la Sarte. But car speed had increased immensely, which added even more of a

safety risk to old courses like Le Mans. In the 1940s, cars rarely eclipsed 100 miles per hour,

even on the fastest sections of the course, cut to the 1955 competition, where practice times

were on a completely different level, highlighted by one man while Fongio reaching 181.57 on

the iconic Monson Strait. Fongio was considered to be the best in the world,

and Fitch was set to be the fourth man in the relay rotation behind Maas and Frenchman Pierre

Levé, who had recently signed on with Mercedes. Levé was a well-respected experienced driver

who nearly won the 1952 Le Mans solo in a Talbot logo before mechanical failures stopped them

short in the final hour, doing it solo? Yeah, it's nuts. It's insane. Like, you can't get out at all?

I guess not. You're peeing and you're pooping and you're eating. We can get out.

Yeah, because the pit stops would probably be like a couple minutes at least. Yeah,

yeah, you're probably right. Let's say the car's got to get fixed. Yeah, I'm sure you've

got to get out, stretch a little bit, poop breaks. But you're, I mean, you're in there

the whole time, and those are not comfortable cars. Stank, dude. Straight up. I'm not just

talking poop. I'm just saying, like, overall, it's not, it's not, it's the 50s. We don't have

the kind of anti-perspirant slash deodorant technology that we do now, thanks to Faber J.

The race started at 3pm, and as expected, the speeds were breathtaking. Within the first two hours,

10 new lap records were set, but at 629pm, disaster struck, where thousands of fans were

gathered in the grandstands. One of the race leaders, Jaguar driver Mike Hawthorne,

got the signal to refuel and change drivers just as he lapped Pierre Lavais' Mercedes,

began to gain on a car that he had lapped three times already, Lance Macklin's Austin Healey.

Macklin would later say that he saw both Hawthorne and Lavais in his rearview mirror,

so he moved right to let them pass. However, after Hawthorne flew by, he immediately cut back in

front of Macklin to get into the pits, which forced Macklin to slam on the brakes and swerve

left. Unfortunately, that meant Lavais, who was screaming up from behind at over 140 miles per

hour, had no time to avoid Macklin's Austin Healey. Upon impact, Lavais' Mercedes was immediately

launched into the air. Macklin later said he felt the, quote, searing heat of the exhaust on his

face as Lavais' Mercedes sailed over him, before it landed on an embankment, slammed into a

concrete stairwell, and exploded like a grenade. John Fitch was at the Mercedes pit box when

the crash took place, preparing to take over from Lavais. Quote, the moment he hit Macklin's car,

it was like he hit a ramp. There was an explosion and a ball of flame. I thought,

my God, that's Pierre. As flaming shrapnel rained down across the area, absolute chaos ensued.

Thans scattered and medical crews rushed to the scene. 1953 Le Mans winner Duncan Hamilton

said, quote, it was like the end of the world. I've never seen such carnage.

Firefighters are guys who fought in World War Two. Yeah, saying these things.

Firefighters tried dousing the wreckage, but the magnesium alloy body only burned hotter.

It would take hours to fully extinguish the fire. That's crazy.

Unbelievably, the race continued as medics and volunteers entered the war zone,

using advertising boards as stretchers. It took hours for the full scale of the

disaster to become known. In fact, radio listeners and television viewers learned

before most people at the race did. I remember hearing that the band was still playing,

like the marching band or something. I feel like I've heard that too, yeah.

And then the ferris wheel was still going. But this is like a massive track.

It encompasses many small little towns too. Yeah.

Especially at that time, you didn't have social media back in 1955.

Take me back.

The organizers reasoned that the ensuing panic would impede emergency vehicles.

The final death toll in the accident was staggering. 83 spectators killed,

along with Pierre LaVe, said Fitch, quote, when I reached the wreckage,

I could see Pierre's body lying there lifeless. I was numb.

The scenes of violence from Le Mans sent shockwaves through the racing world.

The tragedy made it brutally clear that safety standards had failed to keep up with

the increasing speed of these race cars. France and Mexico banned racing.

Switzerland banned all motor racing period until 2018.

The 1955 Italian and Spanish Grand Prix were canceled and the Nürburgring halted operations.

The Mercedes team pulled out of racing across the board and would be over 30 years before they

would return to Le Mans. As for John Fitch, the disaster was so close and visceral that it

left deep scars in his psyche, quote, I felt a responsibility to do whatever I could do to

make racing safer. I didn't want to see another tragedy like that occur again.

It was then that I doubled down on my efforts to improve safety, both on and off the track.

Pretty gnarly thing to witness. This dude's very close to it too. He's waiting to get in the car

that crashed. Yeah, it's pretty harrowing, man. I think we've talked about this

accident a few times on PASCAS. I don't think we've talked about it.

It's been mentioned as like the catalyst for a number of things.

I think we went into depth on it in the Mercedes or something like that, but

it's shocking to hear. I know every time. It's like groundhog day.

Despite being traumatized by what happened at Le Mans, John Fitch knew we had to keep

moving forward. Chevrolet, who had been somewhat of a laughing stock in the international

racing community, was determined to change that. Chief engineer Ed Cole thought John's

European racing background would provide valuable insight into how to prepare American cars for

international competition. Legendary engineer Zora Arkus-Duntoff had made the Corvette a popular

model on the street, but could it really hang with the big boys of racing? Fitch thought so,

saying, quote, the Corvette had the heart to race. It just needed a little more polish.

Fitch became Chevy's go-to expert for performance testing and safety consulting.

He pushed for improvements in suspension, braking, and reliability while still focused

on speed, specifically land speed. Driving Corvettes during Speed Week at Daytona Beach

in 1956, Fitch won first place in the production class top speed challenge

with a two-way speed of 145.543 miles per hour, and Zora Arkus-Duntoff recorded a one-way top

speed of 156 miles per hour. He raced, too? That's sick. Finishing first overall in the modified

class, so this was before the Daytona 500, so I think they're... It was just like a drag strip,

basically. Was it? It was a beach, yeah. But was it oval yet? They'd go, so there's the

beach, some buildings, the highway, and they would head down the road, up the beach,

and that was their... That was an oval. And the pit stop was like a Dunkin' Donuts

at the end of the beach. Yeah. That I don't... I don't know where their pits were. Well,

that's what you said. That's what you told me before we started recording. I forgot. You promised me.

We'll be right back after these messages.

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie, and one thing I've learned is that you buy a house,

but you make it a home. Because with every fix, update, and renovation, it becomes a little

more your own, so you need all your jobs done well. For nearly 30 years, Angie has helped

millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. From plumbing to

electrical, roof repair to deck upgrades. So leave it to the pros who will get your jobs done well.

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Now back to the show.

But Chevy's real statement would be made later that summer at the 12 hours of seabring

when Fitch and co-driver Walt Hansgen drove a Corvette SR2 prototype. It featured a 265 cubic

inch small block V8 with dual four-bale carburetors that made 240 horsepower. It had improved cooling,

stiffer suspension, and aerodynamic tweaks. That thing would be fun to drive. Hell yeah,

brother. The SR2 retained many road car characteristics, but the race is meant to

prove its durability on the global stage. Unfortunately, the car suffered break fade

and differential problems and Fitch and Hansgen were forced to retire after just 70 laps.

Despite the disappointment, it was an early benchmark in American endurance racing

and proof that John Fitch had made an immediate impact at Chevy. In 1957, Fitch led development

and was a test driver for the ambitious Corvette SS project, a lightweight magnesium-bodied

race car built to compete at Le Mans. John helped test the car at seabring and was

scheduled to drive it in endurance races, but the program was canceled due to changes in FIA

regulations. Even though it was a brief run, Fitch's involvement with the supersport inspired

future Corvette performance programs, including the Grand Sport and ZO6.

It doesn't look like a Corvette. No. It looks like a pretty cool spaceship.

Oh yeah. Just the one driver with the bubble. That's neat. Yeah. That's cool.

Pretty sick. Pretty sick. What's that? There's like some car that's like a Sterling Moss tribute

that doesn't have a windshield. It's like maybe a Mercedes. It's got a Mercedes.

It looks like that. It's like a roadster with no windshield. It's like an SLR. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Sterling Moss. This guy. It's an SLR McLaren Sterling Moss. Heads up. Heads up. Heads to auction.

Sterling Moss edition. Oh nice. I'll probably bid on that then. Yeah.

The 1950s were the most deadly decade for race car drivers in history. So in an effort to curb

their involvement, the American automobile manufacturers implemented a ban on racing

in 1957. As a result, Fitch's official racing opportunities with Chevy were limited in 1958.

However, behind the scenes, he still worked on improving performance capabilities outside

of sanctioned factory efforts. I love how performative this is. It was a huge tragedy.

It was like all these manufacturers and countries have the right to ban racing.

But then you see in every company, in every country, the Skunk Works operation happen and

they're like, yeah, but we're still going to race one day, right? Yeah. Yeah. You just have to wait it

out to be like, when is the not disrespectful time to jump back into racing again? Almost 90

people died. Yeah. All at once. It was a pretty huge news story even for the time.

I mean, we're still talking about it. Yeah. Incident, racing incident

ever to happen. While Chevy racing was on ice, Fitch continued to find success with the Cunningham

team who is now competing with Jaguar D types. He also drove from Maserati at Lime Rock Park,

where he was now a circuit director. In 1959, he drove an RSK for Porsche at Sebring,

a Lister Jaguar for Cunningham, and won a Lime Rock Regional Formula Libra event in a Cooper

Monaco T49. However, none of that compared to what Fitch achieved in 1960. Alongside co-driver

Bob Grossman, Fitch claimed a historic victory for American motorsports, the first ever Le Mans

class win for the Chevy Corvette. Quote, I can never look at Le Mans the same way again,

Fitch later admitted, but I had a job to do prove that a Corvette could go the distance.

The victory marked an emotional redemption for John Fitch. Quote, coming back to Le Mans and

winning in that way, it didn't erase 1955, but it gave the place a different meaning.

John Fitch was married with children by the early 1960s and chose to step back from full-time

racing to pursue more long term contributions to the sport. He set out to build an all

original automobile aimed at high performance racing with a focus on handling, safety,

and driver experience. Built off the unique and affordable Corvette Corsa trim, the Fitch Sprint

had a fiberglass body, lightweight but rigid enough to ensure the driver's safety in the event of a crash.

It featured a low profile, sleek lines, and an emphasis on aerodynamics to give it an edge in

both racing and top speed performance. It featured a five speed manual transmission,

and the suspension system was carefully engineered to ensure a balance between comfort for

street use and more intense driving duties. It's like a fast-back Corvair, this thing's sick.

That's really cool. That's the Zagato one, right? Because the square headlights... I don't know.

Here's a Corvair Corsa modified by John Fitch. Okay, yeah, yeah.

That's sick. It looks like it has like a Chevelle roof on a Corvair, if you can imagine that.

That's interesting. I think it looks pretty cool. I like it.

That's cool. And it came with a flat six in the back, right?

Are we going to get into that? I believe so. We'll get into it, maybe, or not.

But in the moment where, you know, I was like, I had only heard bad things about the Corvair,

but then looking at the pictures and seeing like the performance

specs and stuff, like it could have competed with the Mustang. I think the Ralph Nader's

hit job really got at it, though. Have we thought about the Ralph Nader thing on the show?

We had nauseam.

Okay. Safety was paramount in the design of the Sprint. The car featured side impact protection,

a strong chassis, and safety harnesses, which kept in line with Fitch's ethos of survivability

in racing, quote, it's not the speed that kills, it's the sudden stop. The Sprint was

one of the early examples of racing cars that prioritized driver protection without compromising

performance. Fitch would develop three different stages of performance upgrades for the Sprint.

These included updates to the shifting linkage, the steering ratio,

shortening the front control arms, adding adjustable rear shocks, and installing

lightweight 13-inch wheels. Power was bumped from 140 horsepower to 155 from its rear-mounted,

air-cooled six-cylinder engine thanks to new carburetors, individual air filters, and some

timing advance. You gotta get that timing advance. So yeah, flat six. Yeah. Oh, dude,

freaking Corvair with a Porsche flat six in it. Oh man. Think about that, dude. Now you're talking.

Think about that. Yeah, I wonder if that would work, because the trunk is way longer than

a Porsche. You could probably put one in there, yeah. Yeah. And put either a Porsche transmission

in there. Wide body kit, 305 tires on the back, dude. And then like scooter tires on the front.

Yeah. Now we're talking. Seven-inch scooter tires.

Roughly 1,200 Fitch Sprints were sold over the course of a decade, including both in-house and

mail order kit models. That's pretty impressive. It was one of the first widely available

tuner packages in America. Proceeding efforts like Yenco, Shelby, and Callaway,

showing that a private engineer could create a respected performance brand. However, the high

cost of production, the small market for such high performance cars, and the general difficulty of

financing such niche products meant that the Fitch Sprint never reached broad commercial success.

As automotive historian Carl Ludwigson wrote, quote, the Sprint was an idea ahead of its time,

not just more speed, but a better car. Way ahead of its time. People didn't want to

make better cars. Yeah. Fitch had the revolutionary idea to make a better car.

We didn't start doing that until 2022. 2022. John's second Corvair creation was the far more

ambitious Fitch Phoenix. Yeah. Looks like that. Wow. That's sick as hell, dude. Yeah. It looks like

like a Liberty Walk Corvette kit. I was going to say that's ahead of its time.

I love this Fitch guy. What year is it? 60, like mid 60s. The prototype was developed in partnership

with Fitch's neighbor and frequent racing collaborator Colby Whitmore, who was a

professional cartoonist at the Saturday Evening Post. What? Whitmore proved to be an able

apprentice designing swoopy bodywork that was made real by Italian coach builder

Intermecanica. All of his designs had like little tails on the back, ears for the headlights.

Really big labels saying car and spoiler. Yeah. Government overreach.

I've been getting served Heathcliff comics lately and they brand themselves as like the

original Orange Cat cartoon, whatever. It's kind of a dig at Garfield, which, you know,

Garfield got his, he was in the spotlight for a long time. I feel like 2025 is the year of Heathcliff,

though, but there's a lot of really weird subversive comics going on where like, oh,

the ham limit. Let me show you the ham limit real quick. You're going to be like, I'm so glad.

I am so over or not over it. What? The ham? No, no, no. The Heathcliff. Oh, really? You're

over it? I'm over it. Garfield purist. No, no, no, no. Look, I used to love Garfield and then I

learned how cynical that John Davis was about, you know, about Garfield. Oh, like he created his own

prison of Garfield? Pretty much. And now it's trying to just milk as much money out of it as

possible. Did you guys see the Garfield movies with Bill Murray? This is stupid. That's pretty

good, right? That's not cynical at all. It's Heathcliff. The cat driving a ham helmet.

And the sign says ham limit 25. And there's two people watching and one of them says

he's going way over the ham limit. And the ham helmet says ham on it. You know what?

There's a lot. There's either a lot to unpack there or nothing at all.

Pretty good though. Well, thank you for sharing Joe.

The Phoenix. I think it's time to revisit some Heathcliff. The Phoenix was a car that would go

way over the ham limit. The Phoenix's body was made into a version of the 1965 Chevrolet

Corsa's frame that had its wheelbase whittled down by just over a foot. My goodness. It was

customized with a unique fiberglass body that was both lightweight and aerodynamically efficient.

It featured a wide stance, sharp lines and low slung roof, not unlike Heathcliff's ham mobile.

Fitch also infused his love of ham and safety into the Phoenix with innovations like a high

strength steel chassis, a roll bar and safety harnesses. And the glove box was replaced by a

ham cooler. Just ham. By a little oven. The seats had a stitching like a cross-hatch on a ham.

Yeah, with the clothes as the button. God, I want ham now. I'm so hungry for ham. I'm

hungry. This talk's making me hungry.

The Fitch Phoenix was powered by a modified Corvair 6-cylinder engine now making 170 horsepower.

Car still had a five-speed manual transmission and improved handling through its

tuned Corvair independent double wishbone suspension. That's pretty early for that.

Yeah, nice. It's like a Honda. With its lightweight construction, the Phoenix could hit

60 miles per hour in seven and a half seconds, not bad, which was muscle car territory for the

time. That's pretty good. Yeah, pretty good. This is very early on in the month. With 170 horsepower.

Yeah, it's probably super light. I mean, the wheelbase, they shaved a foot off.

Yeah, it's gnarly. That's got to be a couple hundred pounds in weight reduction, right?

The Fitch Phoenix was shown at various car shows and was praised by enthusiasts

and the press. A car and driver called its handling and acceleration right up there

with the best European GT cars, but it was never mass produced. About five to six units were created

between 66 and 69 and each one was made by hand in Fitch's workshop in Sharon, Connecticut, right down

the road from Chote. The Fitch Phoenix helped cement the idea that an American car could take on the

European elites of the world. The project showed Fitch's engineering brilliance by taking

an everyday car like the Corvair and transforming it into something that pushed boundaries in

design, performance, and most notably, safety. However, the Phoenix is just one example of John

Fitch's commitment to driver safety. In the coming years, he was about to lay the groundwork for

life saving improvements to race cars, new tracks, and officially the roadways for millions of people

around the world. What are some of these safety innovations, Nolan?

I'll tell you, Joe. It's impossible to calculate the number of lives saved by John

Fitch's safety inventions. He wasn't trying to stop people from racing or driving fast.

His goal was survivable accidents. Fitch believed that people make mistakes. So,

cars, tracks, and highways should be built to forgive them when possible.

It's interesting that he was using the Corvair, the car that Nader hated and probably ruined.

Yeah, unsafe at any speed, but they both had the same goal of wanting to make cars safer

and more survivable. That's a good, that's a weird, ironic thing.

That is interesting. His most famous innovation was the Fitch Barrier,

a system of sand filled barrels designed to protect drivers from impact with the end of

guardrails or the pit wall. Fitch conducted multiple crash tests himself while being filmed by

high speed cameras for posterity. Well, unc, dead ass crashing out, right? Yeah.

Initially introduced at Lime Rock in the late 60s, Fitch Barriers soon became commonplace on

racetracks, highway exits, and airports all around the world. As Fitch reflected, quote,

I knew there had to be a better way to stop a car than just slamming into something.

And boy, exactly what he did. John also created the Fitch Driver capsule

and experimental safety seat designed to support the driver in a crash. It was one of the first

concepts to consider driver restraint, neck support, and energy absorption as an integrated system.

Quote, the point is not just to build a car that wins races, but to build one that allows

the driver to walk away from losing one. That's a cool quote. That's really cool.

This guy's got quotes, man. This guy's got quotes. Today's carbon fiber monocoques and

survival cells trace directly back to innovations like Fitch's capsule. Fitch also worked on

redesigning parts of dangerous racetracks, pushing for better runoff areas and even

portable safety barriers, the Fitch compression barrier specifically. Instead of barrels of sand,

the compression barrier relied on crushable materials, much like crumple zones in modern

cars. When a car makes an impact, the barrels absorb the energy, slow the car down gradually,

and reduce deadly forces. Have you guys heard that road barriers, the aluminum ones that are

steel or whatever they are, just on the side of the roads, are not working for EVs? Because they're

too heavy. Well, the center of gravity is way lower. Interesting. They work on the average

center of gravity for ice engines. That's where they put it at because that's where they can

grab the car and slow it down. Whereas EVs just pummel through them because the center of gravity

is so low and they are heavy. They're just not working. Interesting. Sounds like an opportunity

for someone to come up with something better. Yeah. You're looking at me. My afternoon is open.

Yeah, get to it, buddy. A racing specific version of his barrel system was developed to protect

drivers on track without using dangerous solid walls. That was the only other solution.

Look no further than the drop in driver fatalities since these Fitch creations became mainstream.

Since Eretton sent his death in 1994, only one Formula One driver,

Jules Bianchi, has been killed while racing and that's because he had a tractor and not because

he hit a wall or a barrier. Not on Fitch. Yeah. John Fitch stayed active in safety research

into his golden years and continued to consult on modern racetrack safety improvements.

In 1995, he returned to Le Mans at age 77 for a ceremonial lap in a restored 1955 Mercedes 300 SLR,

honoring his fallen teammate Pierre Levet 40 years after the tragedy. In 2000, Fitch was

inducted into the Corvette Hall of Fame, not only celebrated for his wins, but for transforming

Corvette into an American performance icon. Two years later, along with legendary collaborators

Juan Manuel Fangio and Briggs Cunningham, Fitch became a member of Sebring's first ever

Hall of Fame class, cementing his place among racing's all time greats.

At age 87, John attempted to set a speed record at Bonneville in a modified 50-year-old Mercedes 300

SL Goldwing. During his run, Fitch reached approximately 130 miles per hour, but suffered a fuel injection

failure that ended his attempt and on October 31st 2012, John Fitch died at the age of 95.

The headstone he shares with his wife Betty is decorated with cross-checkered flags and reads,

Lives lived for the greater good. He made driving and racing safer for all of us.

Revered not just for his racing success, but for his principles, John Fitch exemplified how

engineering, humility, and purpose can leave a legacy far greater than speed alone. His

experience as a World War II pilot and prisoner of war, along with a 1955 Tragedy at Le Mans,

gave Fitch a singular sense of duty towards human life. In an age when engineering and

performance were often pursued at the expense of safety, Fitch envisioned a holistic approach,

one in which the thrills of racing could inform and inspire technology to save lives.

John Fitch is a hero of American racing, a man who blended speed,

brains, and compassion in a way few ever have.

Hope is the powerful thing, said Fitch. As long as you have hope,

you have a reason to keep going. To keep fighting, no matter how hard, things get.

This dude just endless quotes, man. He's got a great view on life.

Yeah, one shaped because of pretty immense hardship and challenges. Wow, what a great guy.

That was a cool story.

All right, that was John Fitch. Thank you guys so much for listening. We do this every week,

so hit that subscribe button, leave a nice review on the platform of your choice.

My name is Nolan Sykes. You can follow me at NolanJay Sykes. Follow Bart at Bids Bartow. Follow

Joe at Joji Weber. Big thanks to our crew behind the camera, Audrey Mark and Edgar,

doing a great job as always. And this one was written by Luke Klomping, always crushing it.

And you guys always crush. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.

You guys crush it every week. You guys crush it. All right, bye.

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