John Fitch's Phoenix up for auction

John Cooper Fitch -- World War II hero, racer par excellence, safety pioneer, and all-around nice guy -- used to show off his Phoenix at the annual Greenwich Concours d'Elegance in southwestern Connecticut, not terribly far from his 1700s estate in his beloved Lime Rock.

The Phoenix was his vision of an American Porsche, a strange mashup of a De Tomaso Pantera with Corvette Stingray. Twin humps on the fenders hid dual spare tires, different sizes for the front and rear. It was based on the unfairly maligned Corvair, which may seem an odd choice for a man who -- following the 1955 Le Mans disaster -- became so obsessed with safety that he developed the Fitch Barrier.

For the Phoenix, Fitch shortened the Corvair's wheelbase from 108 to 95 inches, packing Girling disc brakes up front, a revised fully independent suspension, radial tires and a body built by Intermeccanica. Fitch designed the body with illustrator Coby Whitmore, who just happened to be his neighbor. It took three years for the two to refine the shape. Even with a steel body, it weighed just 2,000 pounds. With 170 hp from its Weber-equipped flat-six Corvair engine, it could blast to 60 in 7.5 seconds and cruise at 100 mph all day.

Fitch intended to sell just 500 examples of the Phoenix, in order to maintain exclusivity. All that performance would cost buyers $8,760, or around $62,000 in today's equivalent -- right on par with a Porsche Boxster S, in fact.

But then, two things conspired to kill the Phoenix beyond any chance of resurrection. First, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. The second and final nail in the coffin was GM's plan to kill the Corvair. By 1968, Fitch seemed just on the cusp of putting his Phoenix into production. But the last Corvair rolled off the Willow Run plant just a year later, and the Phoenix's fate was sealed.

In an alternate universe, we're all driving Fitch Phoenixes to Las Vegas to celebrate its 50th year of production, and getting tattoos of our Phoenixes upon our sweaty torsos. Alas, Fitch only built the one prototype, which he brought down to Greenwich every chance he got. Now, it is up for auction on behalf of the John Fitch estate. Bonhams will sell Lot 357 as part of its Greenwich auction on June 1 as part of the Concours weekend. It is estimated at $150,000-200,000. A pittance, really. For such a quirky piece of American history, connected to a Cunningham-driving, MG-hawking, Lime-Rock-running, POW-surviving, Purple-Heart-earning, Messerschmitt-killing, Mille-Miglia-winning legend, it seems like it might be worth more than that.

By Blake Z. Rong