This is a 1958 Devin Roadster, it’s a little-known American sports car from the mid-century era that was developed to race against the best from Europe.
As with all Devins, this one has a lightweight fiberglass body, it’s fitted to a Morris Minor chassis and powered by a Crosley engine. It reportedly raced in-period in autocross in Castle Rock, Colorado, and it comes with newspaper clippings and pictures from the era.
Fast Facts: The 1958 Devin Roadster
- This is a 1958 Devin Roadster, an American-built sports car from the 1950s designed to compete with lightweight European racers of the time. It has a fiberglass body mounted to a Morris Minor chassis and is powered by a Crosley four-cylinder engine. Period documentation notes that it raced in autocross competition in Castle Rock, Colorado.
- Bill Devin, founder of Devin Enterprises, began building fiberglass-bodied sports cars in 1955. Drawing from racing experience and his copious mechanical skillset, he developed modular fiberglass body molds that could be adapted to different chassis sizes. His cars and body kits were sold nationwide to private builders and amateur racers.
- This example combines a Morris Minor platform with a 724cc Crosley engine, placing it in the under-one-liter racing class during its active years. The lightweight construction and independent front suspension would have likely made it competitive in regional autocross and club racing events during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
- The car reportedly remained active into the 1970s, when it was used as a daily driver by the original owner’s son. It later went into long-term storage and is now described as a project vehicle. Included in the sale are a spare engine, additional body parts, and period newspaper clippings and photographs supporting its competition history.
History Speedrun: Bill Devin + Devin Cars
Bill Devin is one of the unsung heroes of the mid-20th century American automotive world. He was a successful racing driver, he started his own automobile company, and perhaps most notably – he’s the guy who invented the automotive timing belt, a concept now used in countless millions of cars around the world.
Bill Devin at the wheel of his own personal Devin SS. Image courtesy of Undiscovered Classics.
Sadly for Bill, he didn’t patent his timing belt innovation. He had invented it simply because he needed a way of operating the overhead cams from a pair of Norton single cylinder barrels and heads after that had been grafted onto a two-cylinder Panhard boxer crankcase.
The Nortons originally used a shaft with bevel gears to drive the cam, but Bill realized that a toothed rubber belt would do a better job, and sap less power, so he had a new belt made for the application by a company that produced drive belts for agricultural machinery.
Bill Devin Goes Racing
In the sports car world, Bill Devin’s other claim to fame are the highly-competitive roadsters he designed and built starting in 1955 under the company name Devin Enterprises. The automotive trade was nothing new to Bill, he had been raised in a family that owned a Chevrolet dealership and mechanical workshop in Oklahoma.
After serving in the US Navy during WWII, Bill would set up his own dealership, eventually owning a few of them, which helped fund his early forays into amateur racing. He would win his first ever race driving a Crosley that he had modified himself in 1950 at Buchannan Field California.
Before long he would be driving Ferraris, even sharing a car with future Formula One World Champion Phil Hill at a number of meets in California.
Bill Starts Building His Own Cars
As a talented welder, fabricator, and mechanic, it wasn’t long before Bill decided he could do better, and he set to work designing and building his own sports racing car.
Devin Enterprises would advertise their bodies, kits, and turnkey cars in the automotive magazines of the time. Image courtesy of Undiscovered Classics.
He fabricated a chassis that would fit a new fiberglass body he had developed using a Deutsch-Bonnet as a reference. Fiberglass has been called the carbon fiber of the 1950s, it was strong, lightweight, easy to use, and impervious to rust.
Ever the entrepreneur, Bill designed a fiberglass body that was modular – he was almost certainly the first person in the world to do so. His fiberglass body molds consisted of 50 sections that allowed him to produce the Devin body in up to 27 different sizes – to fit a variety of chassis widths and wheelbases.
The Devin bodies would be advertised in the back of car magazines and sold to people across the United States, many of whom worked for years in the garages to fit the body over their donor chassis and get their custom car on the road.
The End Of Devin – And A New Beginning
Devin Enterprises would remain in business from 1955 until 1965, it was one of the biggest companies of its kind at the time, producing fiberglass bodies, fiberglass body and chassis kits, and completed turnkey sports cars.
This wouldn’t be the end of Devin though, the company was revived as Devin Sports Cars of Abington, Pennsylvania in recent years, providing parts and expertise to Devin owners around the world.
The 1958 Devin Roadster Shown Here
This is a 1958 Devin Roadster that is said to have raced in-period in autocross in Castle Rock, Colorado – it now comes with newspaper clippings and pictures from the era by way of proof.
This Devin was built on a Morris Minor chassis and powered by a Crosley engine. This resulted in a lightweight sports car with independent front suspension, easily sourceable parts, and a reliable Crosley 724cc four-cylinder engine that allowed it to race in the under-1 liter class.
This Devin was built on a Morris Minor chassis and powered by a Crosley engine. This resulted in a lightweight sports car with independent front suspension, easily sourceable parts, and a reliable Crosley 724cc four-cylinder engine that allowed it to race in the under-1 liter class.
It’s clear that this Devin is now a project car, it was in storage for many years and its most recent use was back in the 1970s, when the original owner’s son apparently used it as his daily driver to get to and from high school.
The car is now being offered for sale out of Austin, Colorado with a spare engine and some body parts. If you’d like to read more about it or place a bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of eBay Seller
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