John Fitch–Racing Legend

At the age of 95 John Fitch died today.  He lived just outside of Lime Rock in Connecticut.

John was a World War II fighter pilot that was shot down and so spent some time in a German POW camp.  When the war was over John became a top driver for the Mercedes racing team.  He raced for 18 years and finished as high as third at Le Mans.

After racing he focused on highway safety inventing barriers that cars could crash into and the occupants could still survive.  He also worked for Chevrolet to develop the early Corvette into a real race car and even created a version of the Corvair for racing.

Chris Swedo produced, directed, and scored, a documentary on John going to Bonneville to set a world speed record in a Mercedes gullwing at the age of 87.   The documentary is called Gullwing at Twilight and can be found at Chris’ web site.

John was a very talented guy and leaves behind many friends from his racing days and his safety devices have save thousands of lives.