Low-slung, mid-engined, and simply 11 ft lengthy, the Corwin Getaway manner again in 1969 forecasted the arrival of sporty runabouts just like the later Fiat X1/9 and Toyota MR2, and it nonetheless appears to be like recent in the present day. Some LED lighting and an EV powertrain and this might be the product of a present Silicon Valley startup. As an alternative, solely a single prototype exists, making the Getaway one of many nice what-might-have-been tales of automotive historical past.

Flashback to August 1965: The Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles was boiling with racial and sophistication rigidity. The spark was the arrest of 21-year-old Marquette Frye, the tinder a neighborhood simmering with resentment at police mistreatment. Cliff Corridor, a Black photographer whose work took him throughout L.A., from the moneyed heights of Beverly Hills to the working class struggles in South Central, believed the answer to inequality might be present in business. He hoped to be the primary Black designer to create a automobile constructed by and for the Black neighborhood, and the Getaway could be that automobile.

Cliff Corridor

A former U.S. Navy man, Corridor served from 1943 to 1946, the place he’d discovered electronics. Returning to civilian life, he educated on the just-founded Fred Archer faculty of images in Los Angeles. By 1965, he was the chief photographer of the Los Angeles Sentinel, one of many oldest and largest-circulation Black newspapers within the Western U.S. His profession as a photographer would span many years, and he had a present for capturing the second.

However Corridor did not simply have an distinctive eye, he had a stressed intelligence. By all accounts he virtually fizzed with potentialities, concepts popping off him like sparks out of a crackling fireplace. Amongst different innovations, he constructed his personal cell picture growth studio in a van, which allowed him to shoot an occasion after which current the pictures instantly afterward.

“What motivates me greater than anything is that I prefer to create,” he instructed the Occasions. “I prefer to take uncooked materials and switch it into one thing of worth. Design is a sense—one thing proper in my fingertips that needs to be launched.”

It was in his blood. His grandfather was a watchmaker, and his two maternal grand-uncles had constructed vehicles and even an airplane within the Twenties. Corridor was a pure artistic genius, and when he turned his abilities towards constructing a automobile, few doubted that he would succeed.

The idea for the Getaway was a small, environment friendly runabout, supreme for busy Los Angeles visitors. The Getaway could be cheap however enjoyable, inside attain of youthful patrons. Fifteen years later, Toyota would launch the unique, wedge-shaped MR2 on basically the very same rules.

The Corwin identify got here from Louis Corwin, a neighborhood importer of Panasonic electronics. As an early adopter who might see the place the Japanese manufacturing business was going, Corwin clearly noticed the potential in Corridor’s concepts. He invested $100,000 towards growth.

Specs

Beneath, the Corwin Getaway is a square-tube chassis with a fiberglass physique. The engine is a Subaru flat-four of unknown origin—Corridor reportedly pulled it from a junkyard—good for roughly 78 horsepower. The automobile is extremely compact, two ft shorter than a Pontiac Fiero, and with the wheels pushed to the corners.

As a photographer, Corridor commonly lined the celebrities of the day. Stars together with Sidney Poitier and Marvin Gaye supported the Getaway undertaking when it was proven on the Los Angeles auto present in 1970, as did Muhammad Ali.

However as is commonly the case in Southern California, there was an enormous hole between the dream and the fact. Constructing a profitable prototype is difficult sufficient, however elevating the hundreds of thousands wanted to construct a manufacturing facility was a a lot increased hurdle. Lots of have tried and did not go the gap, from the DeLorean DMC-12 to the latest Solo electrical three-wheeler. Corridor’s Getaway ran and drove as a proof of idea, but it surely could not get traction to make it into manufacturing.

A House on the Petersen Museum

When the Petersen Automotive Museum opened in December 2015, Corridor was invited to show his creation as an emblem of Los Angeles automobile tradition and innovation. Petersen curator Leslie Kendall says he was conscious of the automobile due to its L.A. auto present look and that it started a relationship between the museum and Corridor. A number of years later, Corridor entrusted his beloved Getaway prototype to the Petersen, and work started on bringing it again to its former glory.

The work was carried out by restorer Bodie Stroud, who had beforehand restored the Petersen’s three-wheeled Davis Divan—one other L.A.-based automotive oddity. All the pieces was full, as Corridor had cherished his prototype, however the Getaway nonetheless obtained a strong overhaul.

Whereas Corridor himself expressed frustration that he by no means discovered the help wanted to show the Getaway right into a manufacturing automobile, he was delighted to see his legacy preserved. Corridor died in 2020, on the age of 94,

However he leaves behind an unbelievable physique of labor, together with the Getaway. From a time and a spot marked by wrestle, the Corwin Getaway is an emblem of unbridled creativity and hope.

“The significance of the automobile just isn’t as an artifact, however the best way it represents an thought,” Kendall says, “We needed to make it new once more, carry it again. It was one in every of my most rewarding days on the museum.”

The Corwin Getaway will be seen on the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles as a part of the vault tour.

Contributing Editor

Brendan McAleer is a contract author and photographer primarily based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British cars, got here of age within the golden period of Japanese sport-compact efficiency, and started writing about vehicles and other people in 2008. His specific curiosity is the intersection between humanity and equipment, whether or not it’s the racing profession of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught each of his younger daughters the best way to shift a guide transmission and is grateful for the excuse they supply to be perpetually shopping for Sizzling Wheels.