The Phoenix was a very ambitious undertaking by former race car driver and Corvair tuner and John Fitch to build a genuine American Porsche 911 competitor, in a series of 500 GT cars based on Corvair underpinnings. Only this prototype seen here was ever built, which Fitch kept the rest of his life and was sold for $253,000 by his estate back in 2014.
The main reason given for abandoning the project was the impending safety regulations as a result of the 1966 Highway Safety Act. As it turned out, the court battles by the Big Three challenging them weren’t resolved until 1968, by which time the Corvair was heading out of production. I’m not sure that’s the whole story, as it was also quite expensive, priced at $8,700 ($70k adjusted), significantly more than a Porsche 911S, which undoubtedly was significantly faster, better handling and all-round more fully-developed car than the Fitch.
Fitch, like quite a few other American sports car drivers, took a liking to the Corvair right from the get-go, but was of course confronted with its limitations as a genuine sports car. The slow steering, vague long-throw shifter, and of course the twitchy handling. Fitch decided there was a market for components to improve the Corvair, and created a pretty good little business.
He also offered a complete package, the Fitch Sprint, which included all of his suspension, steering and other performance upgrades along with cosmetic elements like vinyl roof, racing stripes and other do-dads.
With the gen2 Corvair in 1965, he stepped up his game a bit more, with a tunnelback roof extension.
The Phoenix was Fitch’s concept of what a luxury grand touring machine ought to be, and was a dramatic departure from production cars of its day. The body styling was the result of a three-year collaboration between Fitch and illustrator Coby Whitmore, his good friend and neighbor. Together they constructed a full-scale mockup which they spent countless hours developing and refining.
Obviously, the most controversial elements are the bulging covers for the two side-mount spare tires. This was done because the Phoenix had larger rear tires than fronts, and by moving the cockpit back so far, there was room for them there, which allowed for a larger trunk under the low sloping hood.
Since the bulges were not very well received, the plan was to also offer the option to delete them, with a single spare in the trunk. Presumably a filler panel would take their place.
The Phoenix, like so many other cars styled by a non-professional designer/studio, shows some good elements but a number of shortcomings too, and not just the spare tire humps. From some angles, it looks pretty good.
From others, not so. I had to look at this shot carefully to convince myself that that rear tire sticking way out was not because the Corvair’s rear axle was dislocated.
Not only does this inward sweep of the rear fenders look a bit bizarre at the wheel, but it also means that whoever is driving behind the Fitch would get the full effect of its rear tires in rain, mud, snow or gravel. Maybe their worries about the upcoming safety regulations were with good cause.
The final design was executed in steel by Frank Reisner’s Intermechanicca Group in Turin, Italy and wedded to a highly modified Corvair drive train and running gear. Building on a base of readily available mechanical parts was essential to ensure that spares would be available and to simplify servicing.
The interior shows a rather strong Italian influence. Why the seat backs are so low I do not know. There is a blurb in the spec sheet about the seats being custom-positioned to each customer.
There’s no question that these toggle switches would not have met the safety standards.
“Phoenix No. 001 of a series of 500”.
Supposedly, the Phoenix’ 164 c.i. Corvair boxer six yielded 170 (gross) hp at a low 5200 rpm. The Corvair engine was originally designed to be a low-rev economy engine, and even with tuning and multiple carbs, it still wasn’t a revver, like the Porsche 911s engine, which peaked closer to 7000 rpm.
The specs (and Bonham’s ad) say that the Phoenix used Weber 36DCLD carbs to make that 170 hp, but these look to be the stock 140 hp Rochesters. Hmm. Maybe they never got that sorted out.
This spec sheet also refers to a slightly cheaper ($8,300) Phoenix II that omitted the disc brakes and the Weber carbs.
I applaud John Fitch for the gumption to create this, despite some flaws and shortcomings.The Corvair was commonly called “a poor man’s Porsche” which was a bit of a stretch. But in Fitch’s eyes, it had the potential to be just that, and he gave it his best shot.
John Fitch invented the sand filled plastic barrel crash barrier, among other things. Never mind his driving achievements. I think the front view, from certain angles, reminds me of the DeTomaso Pantera.
Fitch was such an interesting guy, to be that active and creative into his 90’s. How many “make your own car” dreams like this never even got this far?
The Fitch Phoenix is hardly forgotten by motor-heads of my generation. He was really onto something and had GM given John Fitch a fraction of the support Zora Arkus-Duntov got in developing the Corvette it would have had a real Porsche-beater (and maybe Ferrari too) but GM had the Corvette, so there. As Doug D wrote, John Fitch was indeed a very interesting person. If you are not familiar with his life you will not be sorry for doing some research about him.
Here is a fascinating story about his land speed record attempt at Bonneville in 2003: http://www.racesafety.com/bonneville_record_2003.html
I knew of his racing successes, the Corvair, and the sand barrels, but not the Phoenix. Thanks for the post. With some GM development dollars and expertise (seriously), this could have been a successful complement to the Corvette.
I certainly never forgot it. I first saw it in a library copy of World Cars 1965. As an impressionable youth, it did. I paid no attention to how practical ( or affordable) it might be. It just looked great. “Unsafe at any speed” had just come out so the Corvair’s reputation was only a little tarnished.
I think I did wonder why he did’nt use the Turbo Spyder engine. Perhaps his GM contacts had already told him that engine was a dead end. I also remember being surprised to learn many years later that John owned ( and drove) the car. As I remember the sale after his death, someone in the same town bought it. He wanted it to stay local.
Fitch seems not to have liked the turbo version of the Corvair engine. As best as I can remember, the Sprints didn’t even offer the turbo, with various hop-up components for the NA engine instead.
I’m guessing he didn’t like the non-linear power delivery of the turbo, which was of course quite primitive at the time. The NA version was more like a genuine sports car engine, in terms of its power delivery: linear and higher-revving.
It may also be that the turbo engine didn’t offer the same opportunity to offer hop-up kits.
He should have stuck to the Sprint, which was a PRETTY modification of the Corvair. Nobody wanted or needed a Corvette with manboobs.
To me, the ‘manboobs’ are the most interesting aspect of the Phoenix. In fact, it seems like quite an ingenous way to utilize the vacant fender space behind the front wheels. The biggest issue would be full-size spares necessitating the ungainly humps. But with modern, space-saving tires, those might not be necessary.
In fact, putting just ‘one’ small spare tire on the passenger side seems like a great way to improve the car’s balance and handling by offsetting the weight of the driver. I’m a little surprised no one else has thought of doing it that way. Maybe it’s not really feasible with modern unibody (or even BoF) construction.
And it’s worth noting that the empty space behind the front wheelwells was famously exploited in the real The French Connection story. In the actual version, the smugglers utilized that large open area in a 1960 Buick Invicta to hide the drugs.
Bristols had spare tires in front fenders for years, access via an external door, but they were tall enough to dispense with external humps so were almost invisible.
Interesting story about a….uhh….sporty car. I was busy in the USMC at the time so I fortunately missed out on this amateur night eye sore. His illustrator friend obviously knew nothing of design or surface development.
OTOH, Fitch’s work on improving Corvairs was deservedly well known. This car, unfortunately, was simply a step to far beyond his capabilities. 🙁
IMO as a retired Industrial Designer, the second gen Corvair was one of GMs’ nicest 60s designs. Also, that version of the car was reasonably capable for the time. DFO
I came across a Fitch Corvair in the Niccolini Auto Museum, located in the City of La Molina, a suburb of Lima, Peru. Unfortunately, no one there could tell me how they came upon such a rare, high performance Corvair in Peru. The roof extension was a small improvement on the 2nd generation Corvair’s already good looks.
You either get the Corvair or you don’t. Fitch did, I don’t. It would be my belief that the market for an “American Porsche” was not far above zero. Either half of that formulation would have slit the throat of the other half. Anyone interested in the “Porsche” part would chafe at the compromises (real or imagined) from the donor car, especially at that price. And anyone interested in the “American” part would compare it with the power output (and value proposition) of the Corvette and start laughing.
But. I have to admire the guy for the effort he put into this one. It is attractive, I’ll certainly give it that (though with points off for the spares). That fender tuck behind the rear wheels would have also been pretty effective at self-sandblasting those quarter panels.
The nose looks vaguely like the Pontiac Banshee concept. Very vaguely.
At first glance, I thought this looked like a C3 Corvette kit car… but then it occurred to me that this was designed years before the C3 came out.
It does, in my opinion, bear a good bit of similarities to the Mako Shark II concept from the mid-1960s:
It was actually a pretty blatant crib of Pontiac’s 1964 Banshee.
The Banshee previewed a number of C3 styling elements. These had all been seen on various Corvette and other GM concepts going back to the original Sting Ray racer of 1958.
Thanks – I’d forgotten about the Banshee, and now I see that Chas above referenced the similarities too.
The tunnelback Corvair Sprints look amazing, I saw a couple of them in the flesh at an all Corvair show my parents stumbled to by chance at the pheasant run resort and brought me to, and with years of finding little to no information to be found about them and never seeing another to date they’re high on my list of obscure cars.
The Phoenix is pretty fascinating from a design standpoint, I’ll even give the spare tire bumps a pass since they actually house actual spare tires unlike a certain well known big three luxury coupe, I was put off by them on first sight because I thought they were misplaced bumps to exaggerate the front wheels ala 71 Javelin. Still, I’d pick the delete option if these became reality.
Minor correction: “the 164 c.i. Corvair boxer four” – it’s a boxer six
Typo now fixed. Thanks!
I first met John Fitch in the Summer of 1979 at his home in Salisbury, CT. I had just purchased a pair of Corvair Sprints from his former Parts Manager at the Fitch and Company in nearby Falls Village, CT. We talked about several subjects and John related a story of how he took the freshly completed Phoenix prototype to the GM Technical Center in Warren, MI to show it off. They whisked the car into the Styling Department and John didn’t see it again for another half hour or so. A few years later the C3 Corvettes were unveiled and John could see a few styling ques that matched up with his car. Coincidence or…
I don’t like to rain on folk’s stories, but this one doesn’t ring quite right to me. The Pontiac Banshee (below) was shown in 1964, and if anyone was looking at somebody, it was John Fitch and his stylist friend looking at that when they penned the Phoenix.
And in 1965, the Corvette Mako Shark II (below) was shown publicly, and clearly that’s where the C3 got its design.
The timeline of your story doesn’t jive. GM Design had been creating a line of Corvette concepts with this direction of styling since the late 50s.
Pete? Aren’t you one of the engineers behind the Corvair program? And you were interviewed on Hagerty’s film “Will the Corvair Kill You”?
And he had a cheaper version without disc brakes too, best to only build the fast one not try to scare people off by leaving things out thats what Chevrolet did with the mechanical donors and how Fitch made his regular coin by improving them
The Fitch Phoenix only weighed 1,950 pounds, most of it being at the back. If there was a car that could get away with four-wheel-drums, it was the Phoenix.
Well, Fitch certainly went where the action was. From Wikipedia: “By 1944, Captain Fitch was a P-51 Mustang pilot with the Fourth Fighter Group on bomber escort missions, and became one of the Americans to shoot down a German Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter. Just two months before the end of the war, he was shot down himself while making an ill-advised third strafing pass on an Axis train and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war.[3][4][5][6]”
Living about an hour from Lime Rock Park race track, I have attended many race events there over the years. Many times while at the track, I saw John Fitch drive the Fitch Phoenix into the infield, always wearing his flat cap, park the car in an unassuming way but always in a prominent spot where people would see it. Well into his 90’s the last time I saw him with the Phoenix at Lime Rock, his presence always added to the mystique of this fabled track.
Here in Australia there was a company called Bolwell, they made kit cars using Holden running gear. Later they used Ford sourced power trains. The Bolwell Nagari shares some design details with the Fitch, especially the rear three quarter view.
In the late 1960’s Holden was developing a fibreglass bodied two door version of the Torana, the Torana GT-X would have been an Australian version of the Corvette, a smaller car with a straight six engine, it definitely shared some design details with the Banshee but in a more conservative package.
A write up on the Torana GT-X by William S would be most welcome
My father Wally Walbridge worked for John Fitch during the time of the Sprint Corvairs and the Fitch Phoenix and I remember him bringing it to our home in Greenwich CT in either1967or’68. It was certainly was an exotic car to my 12 year old eyes. My father up to that point had been racing a Lotus Super 7 at Lime Rock with much success but traded racing for sailing about that time and named his boat the “Phoenix”. Interesting enough he later on worked for the Phoenix Insurance company in Hartford, so the name definitely left an impression on him. Another interesting note was along with Fitch’s safety barrels, they built a 40’s style Cord out of some composite material that in order to prove its toughness and safety, it was driven through a brick wall on Lime Rocks main straight….my father had wanted to be the driver but didn’t get the chance!
I live just 35 minutes from Lime Rock Park and made a point over the years to always look for John Fitch and his Phoenix at the Historic Festivals. He was a fascinating man to talk with and an old world gentleman. I have a recreation of the 1955 Mille Miglia Mercedes poster and was able to get Stirling Moss to sign it as overall winner in the Sports Racing Class, and certainly wanted John to sign it as the winner of the Standard Sports Class. I was told that he may not be at the track that day but I did see him at a dinner that evening. I didn’t have the poster with me but he said stop up at the house Monday and I’d be happy to sign it. When I got there his home aid let me in and John was bedridden by then as his health was failing. He smiled as he signed it for me. Sadly, two months later I heard of his passing and it affected me more than I had expected. I have reflected over the day I went to his home and miss seeing and listening to a genuinely gracious man who I will never forget.