Subject: Re: [Tigers] John Fitch

From: "rande" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2012 21:56:15 -0400

I haven't gotten to the NY Times obit, but Autoweek wrote a wonderful tribute
to him yesterday. You may go directly to their site, or follow the account of
his life on Wikipedia.org and look for the link at the bottom of the page.

I learned about his passing from the press office of Lime Rock Park, along with
the passing of former Alfa and SAAB dealer and fellow race driver Gaston Andrey,
yesterday morning.

For those of you who thought he couldn't still be around the last 10 years,
as was reported, he was  a fixture at Lime Rock every Labor Day Weekend for
the Fall Vintage classic, and invariably he brought his Corvair-powered Fitch
Phoenix with him  each year, up until at least 2010.

Some of you will remember recently that Automodello(sp) recently made 1/43 scale
models of both the Fitch Sprint Corvair as well as the dark chocolate-colored
Fitch Phoenix.

Also, the Hemmings magazine Classic Car published a recent drive report and
restoration of a 1965 Fitch Sprint Corvair, which someone brought down to Fitch's
home in Falls Village to show John.

If I had known that a few of you wanted to talk to him, I could have tipped
you off to his appearances earlier. He certainly would have been up for that,
and I know you would have really enjoyed talking to him. He was a very approachable
guy.

I should make clear that I, like the rest of you, was not a personal friend
of his, just a fan who grew up reading about him and his Sprint and Phoenix
cars.

Rande Bellman
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