John Fitch and I were close friends for more than 50 years. We played together, sailed together, traveled together, partied together and wrote two books together: Racing Corvettes, The Early Years and Racing With Mercedes. Although on opposite coasts, we always kept in touch via email and telephone.
This remembrance consists of more than 90 images selected from various sources including the GM Archive courtesy of Bob Lutz, the Daimler-Benz Archive, John’s own collection as well as mine.Special thanks to Don Klein, Larry Berman, Bob Sirna and Carl Goodwin.
John lived a truly extraordinary life, a virtually incredible one. I have tried to impart a small taste with these images. This is in no way a history. A complete pictorial would probably have to have 1,000 rather than 90. At any rate, such a complete history would be impossible because a sufficient number of images do not exist.
John Fitch – A Pictorial Remembrance
John Cooper Fitch was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on August 4, 1917.As a teenager, John was engrossed with cars and their construction. His first was cobbled together from various different parts.After studying civil engineering at Lehigh University for a year, he dropped out in 1939, hopped a freighter for England and toured the British Isles in an MG.With war looming, he returned to the US and spent $1,500 for a 32-foot schooner, the Banshee, and sailed the Gulf. His girlfriend was his first mate. They looked were part of a civilian Coast Guard patrol to report German submarine sightings. They never saw a sub.Fitch joined the Army Air Corps early on April 29, 1941 and earned his wings.John’s unit, the 15th Bombardment Squadron was the first Americans in Europe. He participated in the first U.S. bombing raid over occupied France on July 4, 1942. He flew more than 50 bombing missions.Posted to North Africa, John flew a captured Messerschmitt ME110 to help train Americans. He was shot down and had to crash land in 1944, but survived without injury.Switched from bombers to fighters, John was shot down in his P-51 in February 1945. He bailed out, sent to a German prison camp and liberated by General Patton in May and rotated home.John went to Florida and bought a pontoon plane and operated a shuttle service. He met Kathleen Kennedy and she became his girlfriend. Kathleen took this photo of her mother, Rose, and John while on a fishing trip. John became friends with Kathleen’s brother, John Fitzgerald.Kathleen was killed in a plane accident in 1948, so John moved to New York where he operated an MG shop in a Willys dealership in White Plains, NY.
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Bitten by the racing bug, John entered his MGTC in a race at Bridgehampton, NY on June 11, 1949. He came in 5th overall.John’s new girlfriend, Elizabeth Huntley, was also his pit crew. Fitch finished 4th overall and 3rd in class at Linden on August 21, 1949. After the race, John asked her to marry him.John Fitch marries Elizabeth HuntleyThe wedding was followed by a gala party.The pair honeymooned in the MG TC through Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.Afterwards, they went to Watkins Glen, NY, where John entered the Seneca Cup and finished 6th overall and 2nd in class.In 1950, John created the Fitch Model B, a Ford V8-60 engine in a Fiat 1100 chassis with a modified Crosley body. On May 7, he took a 2nd in its first race and a 3rd at the Bridge a month later. Called the “Fitch Bitch,” he sold it to Paul O’Shea at the end of 1950.On December 31, 1950, he entered a Jaguar XK120 at Sebring, the first American Sports Car Endurance race. He and co-driver, Colby Whitmore, covered the six hours and finished 16th overall and 1st in class.On March 11, 1951, Argentine dictator Juan Peron hosted a sports car race in Buenos Aires. John borrowed a Cadillac-Allard J2X from his friend, Tom Cole. Fitch ended up finishing first overall. It’s traditional for the race winner to receive a kiss from the race queen. In this case, she was also the queen of the country, Evita Peron.Back home, John built another sports-car special, the famous Fitch-Whitmore Jaguar in which he won many SCCA races. The car is so viable that it has been raced almost continually since its construction, now in vintage events.
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In 1951, John started racing for Briggs Cunningham. His first time out was at Le Mans on June 23 in a Cunningham C2. He and co-driver, Phil Walters, were 18th overall and 1st in class.On August 26, 1951 at Elkhart Lake, John won the main event.The next month at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix on September 15, he came in 2nd overall.Briggs had John and co-driver, George Rice, run a new Cunningham C4R at the 1952 Le Mans. After running in third for the first four hours, their engine failed and they were DNF.In August 1952, John was invited to try out for the Mercedes-Benz team.Team Director Alfred Neubauer was pleased with John’s performance at the Nurburgring.The Porsche factory team was there for a Porsche-only race so, due to his performance for Neubauer, John was asked to drive a 356 Porsche. He finished 4th overall among some of the best German drivers.On September 20, 1952, John returned to Watkins Glen to drive a C-Type Jaguar in the Seneca Cup for importer Max Hoffman. He won it. In addition, John became the first SCCA National Champion.Because of his tryout earlier in the year and because he had lobbied hard to convince Neubauer to enter, Fitch was invited to join Mercedes-Benz in its assault on the Carrera Panamericana, the Mexican Road Race.One of the most difficult and demanding races in the World, the route covered 1,932 miles from the bottom of Mexico at Tuxtla Guttierrez to the top at Ciudad Juarez. John, the driver, was teamed with his mechanic-navigator, Eugene Geiger, in one of the three Mercedes-Benz 300 SL W 194 factory race cars.
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Alfred Neubauer congratulated John for finishing in fourth place, but was later disqualified for stopping off the road for a repair. The new 300 SLs were first with Karl Kling and second with Hermann Lang. Luigi Chinetti was third in a Ferrari 340 Mexico Berlinetta.Carrera Panamericana, 1952 – From the left: racing manager Alfred Neubauer, Eugen Geiger and John Fitch, with the Mexican ponchos of the winning team Hans Klenk and Karl Kling; in second place: Hermann Lang and Erwin Grupp.After running a Sunbeam-Talbot at the Monte Carlo Rally in Europe, John returned to the U.S. and won an 8-hour race at MacDill AFB in Tampa, Florida. Elizabeth helped him celebrate.Then it was back to Sebring on March 8, 1953. This time the event was extended to 12 hours. John drove a Cunningham C4R for Briggs and won overall.Cunningham entered John and Phil Walters again at Le Mans. John set the fastest lap at 154.8 mph. He and Phil finished third overall in the C4R.Phil Walters, Briggs Cunningham and John Fitch at Le Mans.Fitch stayed on in Europe to run a Sunbeam-Talbot in the Alpine Rally for the factory. He and navigator Peter Miller were 20th overall and 8th in class.John’s final race for 1953 was at March AFB near Riverside in Southern California. He was first overall in Brigg’s Cunningham C4R, clinching his second SCCA National Championship. He was congratulated by a number of Hollywood glitterati. I was there shooting with my trusty Rolleiflex and met John for the first time.Fitch only entered five events in 1954. His best finish a 3rd at Tampa in Brigg’s 2.9 Ferrari. John’s main activity that year was helping make the movie, Racers.John helped the actors act like race car drivers and eventually did some stunts.
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Perhaps the best year for John was 1955. He became a member of the Mercedes-Benz team and the only American ever to drive for them. The first event was the Mille Miglia in Italy. John waited with the production 300 SL for tech inspection.John’s navigator was German journalist Kurt Gesell.John Fitch and Kurt Gesell in the production Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing at the 1955 Mille Miglia.John has told me that was the most significant race for him. He won the Gran Turismo Class and finished 5th overall.Stirling Moss won overall in a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. Chief Engineer Rudy Uhlenhaut (left) congratulates navigator Denis Jenkinson (center) and Stirling Moss.Next it was off to Le Mans for the Mercedes-Benz team. Neubauer teamed John with Frenchman Pierre Levegh. The two talked it over before the start.Talking shop in Le Mans, 1955 – John Fitch (left), Pierre Levegh, who had a fatal accident during the race, and racing manager Alfred Neubauer.Start of the 1955 Le Mans 24 Hours. Levegh was selected to drive the first leg.After two hours, Levegh was still at the wheel. Lance Macklin in an Austin-Healey swerved to the center of the track to avoid Mike Hawthorne’s much faster D-Type Jaguar. Levegh hit the Austin-Healey, became airborne. The 300 SLR hit an embankment, disintegrated, the magnesium alloy caught fire and the remains of the car went into the crowd. More than 80 died in what has been called the worst racing accident in history.Next for Mercedes-Benz was the Tourist Trophy on September 17, 1955. Fitch was teamed with Stirling Moss in a 300 SLR.John Fitch driving the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR – the Tourist Trophy took place in Northern Ireland over what was called the Dunrod Circuit on 7.42 miles of narrow, twisty public roads. Fitch and Moss brought Mercedes another victory in the contest for the World Manufacturers Championship.
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The last race of 1955 was the Targa Florio. The Mercedes-Benz team of 300 SLRs came in full force. Mercedes and Ferrari were neck and neck for the Championship. The Targa would tell the tale.John was teamed with Desmond Titterington. In this photo, John leads the Ferrari 857 Sport of Eugenio Castellotti and Robert Manzon.Each 44-mile lap of the Targa Florio had 710 corners. The public roads over the Island of Sicily had both domestic and wild animals wandering around as well as bandits. Surfaces ranged from bad to worse and a missed turn might mean a horrific drop down the side of a mountain.Mercedes-Benz Team Photo – Stirling Moss and Peter Collins stormed into the lead, breaking all records and took the flag followed by Juan Manuel Fangio with Carl Kling in another Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. Fitch and Titterington were fourth.After Fitch wrote Chevrolet Chief Engineer Ed Cole about Corvette’s competitive possibilities, Cole had John drive a stock Corvette at Daytona Beach in February 1956.Fitch covered the Flying Mile at 145.543 mph, setting a new production-car record.As a result, Cole named John team manager for an effort at Sebring in March. The team was Corvette #1 with John Fitch and Walt Hansgen, Corvette #5 with Dale Duncan and Allan Eager, Corvette #6 with Ray Crawford and Max Goldman, Corvette # 7 with Ernie Ericson and Chuck Hassan.Before the start, the band played the Star Spangled Banner. Everyone stood at attention.The Fitch / Hansgen Corvette had a larger engine and a four-speed transmission. The finished 9th overall and won Class B.After the Sebring 12 Hours, Crawford and Goldman were 15th and won Class C. The other two cars failed to finish, GM won the Team Prize. In a few short weeks, John Fitch had turned a boulevard cruiser into a competitive, world-class sports car.For the rest of 1956, John drove for Briggs Cunningham. At Elkhart Lake on September 9 in a 6-hour, he was second overall in a D-Type Jaguar.
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At the 1956 Nassau Speed Week in December at the wheel of Briggs’ D-Type, John ran in three events, scoring a 1st, a 2nd and a 4th.In March 1957, it was back to Sebring. Again, Fitch was asked to lead the GM team. This time, the factory sent a new Corvette SS, Detroit’s first modern all-out sports racing car plus an SR2 and two production cars.John and Piero Taruffi, Italy’s ‘Silver Fox’ drove the SS. During practice, Fangio gave the car a try, breaking the previous year’s record by two seconds. Then Moss went out and did only one second slower than Fangio.This time, Corvette Chief Engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov was on board too. The previous year he had told Cole that there wasn’t enough time to prepare the cars and declined to participate.At the end, the SS had failed to finish when the engine overheated. The SR2 was seventh in class while the production cars scored a first and second in class.At Watkins Glen on September 21, 1957, John drove a 200S Maserati in the Queen Catherine Cup to fourth overall and first in class.Towards the end of the decade, Fitch began to taper off racing. In 1959, he drove a Cooper-Monaco in a NASCAR Sports Car event at Harewood Acres, Canada, but, while in the lead, had to drop out on the 41st lap when a fuel line broke.John’s last European foray was at Le Mans in June 1960. Briggs Cunningham entered a three-car Corvette team: cars #1, #2 and #3.Start of the 1960 24 Hours of Le Mans – Fitch was in car #3 with Bob Grossman. Cunningham himself drove another Vette with Bill Kimberley in #1 with Dick Thompson and Fred Windridge in #2 rounding out the team.John and Bob finished 8th overall, the best a Corvette would do at Le Mans until 2001.
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After GM came out with the Corvair, John designed modifications to turn a rather prosaic car into a poor-man’s Porsche called the Fitch Sprint. They were so good that Sprints could hold their heads up in SCCA events.Fitch sold Sprint kits to Chevrolet dealers. As many as 100,000 were installed in Corvairs. John’s design added two additional carburetors, a stiffened suspension with new springs, shocks and an anti-sway bar plus a tightened steering ratio. Engine modifications upped the horsepower from 102 to 150.Due to the success of the Sprint, John designed a completely new car based on Corvair components. He called it the Phoenix. The body is stunningly beautiful. Only one Fitch Phoenix was built because when Ralph Nadar called Corvairs (unjustly) “Unsafe At Any Speed,” Chevrolet dropped the line.John ran his very last (other than vintage) race at Sebring in 1966. He, along with Briggs Cunningham and Davey Jordan, drove Briggs’ Porsche 904. Unfortunately, after 148 laps, the engine failed and they were DNF.With his racing career at an end, John turned his attention to race and highway safety. He began an extensive series of experiments and came up with partially-filled with sand plastic barrels. His first demonstration took place at Lime Rock on September 5, 1967.Today, Fitch Inertial Barriers are used on virtually every public highway. John greatest achievement was this invention, which has, to date, saved an estimated 20,000 lives. Unfortunately for John’s finances, his patent ran out long ago and many are made without a royalty being paid.But the Fitch Inertial Barriers weren’t John’s only contribution towards safety. The steel barriers on roads are often unkind to cars and drivers when struck. So John created Fitch Compression Barriers and Fitch Displaceable Guardrails for use on race tracks.Fitch also developed a much safer seating and harness arrangement for race drivers.In 2000 at the Fall Goodwood Revival, John drove a replica prototype Mercedes-Benz 300 SL W 194 to commemorate his drive at La Carrera Panamericana in 1952.John, in the car, talks it over with Sir Stirling Moss and Sir Jack Brabham.
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Dan Gurney, Phil Walter’s widow Sheila and John contribute to the celebration and remembrances at the 2001 Watkins Glen Vintage Festival.John’s friend, Bob Sirna, had acquired and prepared a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL. He entered it in the Mille Miglia retrospective in 2002 with John driving and Bob navigating.The Mercedes-Benz publicity folks staged a reunion event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1952 Carrera Panamericana victory. They invited John and, as I recall him telling me, paid all of his expenses as well as a rather generous honorarium.John Fitch in the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL W 194 at an event marking the Carrera Panamericana Mexico in 2002.In 2003, Bob Sirna took his 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing to Bonneville to attempt a class record. John drove for him. In this photo, Bob is standing behind his car.The 2003 Bonneville attempt failed, so Bob and John returned the following year and again in 2005.For a number of recent years, John and I would go to the Monterey Historics together. Our friend, Jay Leno, was usually there too. So one year, I snapped this photo.On August 4, 2007, it was my great honor to help celebrate John’s ninetieth birthday at my home in Redondo Beach, California. We had a large number of guests including Bob Bondurant (left), Phil Hill and Mr. Corvette, Dick Guldstrand (right).During his last year, John was ill much of the time. One of his highlights, however, was when Stirling and Susie Moss came to visit over Labor Day.Much of the time that last year, John was bedridden and slept a lot. One time my friend and John’s confidant, Don Klein, asked him if he was unhappy. “No,” John replied, “My dreams are wonderful. I have long and intimate talks with Elizabeth.” (John’s wife, Elizabeth, died in 2009).I took this portrait of John in 1992 when we had a birthday party for Briggs Cunningham. John Cooper Fitch died peacefully in his home at Lakeville, Connecticut at age 95 on October 31, 2012, surrounded by this three sons, John, Christopher (Kip) and Stephen.
Great photographs, Art. You really captured the essence of John Fitch, particularly his early years of breezy sailboating, cool girlfriends and aromatic pipe tobacco.
What a wondereful photographic tribute to John Fitch! He led a very adventurous and successful life. RIP John
Over the last 30 years I had seen Mr Fitch at Lime Rock, each year getting closer and listening to his stories. A most interesting man. A full life, no man can ask for more. What a wonderful tribute.
Thank you Mr. Evans for a wonderful photo story of a life well lived.
Wonderful recollections of a true renaissance man We were fortunate enough to have John as honored guest in 2010 at the 50th anniversary of the first Elkhart Lake Road Races. It will be fondly remembered by the members and guests of the Elkhart Lake Historic Race Circuits Preservation Society who were there,
What an inspiration this man proved to be. Thank you, Art Evans, for this splendid photographic record of a fine career. To repeat myself, John Fitch was an inspiration. They don’t make ’em like that anymore. – David White, Slovenia.
Most excellent. Thank you.
What a great man. And he drive so different cars over the years. Men and machine has always been fascinating to read about.John Fitch was such a man Gentleman dont exist so often this days.
Art,
What a pleasure this Thanksgiving morning to go through wonderful photos encapsulating John’s very significant life. Well done, your love and respect for the man shines through in your photos, especially the one with Bob Bondurant, Stirling Moss and an obviously failing Phil Hill.
I never had the privilege of speaking to the man but was close to him doing appearances and signing books at several vintage racing events. A true American hero loved the world over. Wish we had more like him.
For those of us kids in the ’50s who were just catching on to sports cars, John Fitch was an idol. Learned much more about him reading Sports Car Digest Weekly, a tribute to your good journalism. Fabulous memories, SCDW. I had the pleasure of visiting Briggs Cunningham’s Museum in Costa Mesa, CA in the 1980s and talking with John Bishop about the cars you mention that Fitch drove.
Bud Suiter, SCCA Racer from the 70s..
Superb job by Art Evans and his supporting cast, and thank you to SCD for running it. John Fitch was “A True American Hero.”
A beautiful and moving photo essay on a great life. Thank you.
Thank you for such a great photo tribute. John never stopped trying to make things better and safer.
Your Pictorial Remembrance of John Fitch in Sports Car Digest is fantastic. I hope all Fab Fifties folks see this.
Thanks to you Art for getting this all together and thanks to Sports Car Digest for publishing this photographic bit of Sports Car History.
Thanks for Remembering a Good and Great Man. Have visited with John and is a Hero to this 84 year old person.
john and zora can race corvettes again. rip
What a fantastic life and great homage to what I can only assume from all information, an incredible man. He came of age when the race car became such a serious missile that in the wrong hands or bad fate, led to a bad ending. But John survived all those perils only to make it safer for everyone who followed.
thank you for furthering my knowledge of such an icon. I only wish I could have met the man.
I think I remember reading years ago, in the 50’s, that John Fitch while flying a P-51 in Europe during WW2, actually shot down a German ME-262 jet. Does anybody else remember reading that?
Disappointing to find no record of John’s 1949 exploits on the streets of Bridgehampton in an Effyh 500 from Sweden. As yet this seems to be poorly documented (unexplored?) for the post-war history of racing at Bridgehampton:
The first Euro formula car raced in the US? The “batmobile” towcar team?
Fitch’s very first “professional” ride? What followed???
Bruce Stevenson’s son may have recollections of the war.
Please help us start at the beginning.
Thanks for everything you’ve done for motorsports, Art.
Guy Frost for Bridgehampton Racing Heritage Group
He , was a absolutely gentlemen. Have the opportunity to know him at CC of MB at Irving Ca. He is a real example for the future generations. God bless him and his family.
John was one great guy and certainly one of a kind, we sure did enjoy a few drinks at the bar at Sardi’s in NYC when we were members of a club together, and yes John was credited with having shot down the first German jet in WW II.