TINY CAR, BIG IDEAS
For every Enzo Ferrari there are many Preston Tuckers. You have only to look at John DeLorean or Henrik Fisker, both vastly experienced industry veterans with high-profile reputations and access to avenues of finance, to see what the challenges of achieving success might be.
It is not surprising then that most, if not all, readers of this story will never have heard of Cliff Hall and the Corwin Getaway. The Getaway was a daring and visionary car, designed not only to fill an automotive niche in an innovative way but also to bring a measure of prosperity and self-improvement to one of the world’s most economically deprived inner cities, the Watts district of Los Angeles, California.
That a simple, lightweight two-seater could do all these things would not be considered a stretch, given its parent. Cliff Hall was a man whose quick and creative mind was packed with ideas. He was constantly driven to create new things, compelled to follow his dreams. He had an enthusiasm to be, in his own words, ‘a builder, a creator – it came naturally to me’.
Born in Los Angeles in August 1925, Hall conquered many of the obstacles that faced a black man born nearly 30 years before the civil rights movement in the United States had begun in earnest. Not only was he arguably the leading black society photographer of his time, he was considered one of Hollywood’s
