This is the “Salerno Special” Devin Roadster, its construction began in 1959 and utilized parts and inspiration from around the world, making it an American sports car with an international soul.
The car was built by Salvatore Salerno using a Triumph TR2/TR3 chassis from the mid-1950s, a Willys Hurricane F161 six-cylinder engine, and a modified Devin body based on a design of the 1955 Ermini 357 Sport which had been built in Italy by Carrozzeria Scaglietti.
Fast Facts – The Salvatore Salerno Devin
- The Salerno Special Devin Roadster was built by Salvatore “Sal” Salerno, starting in 1959. It features an international mix of components: a Triumph TR2/TR3 chassis from the UK, a Willys Hurricane F161 six-cylinder engine from the USA, and a modified Devin body based on the Italian-designed 1955 Ermini 357 Sport. The car’s body is made from fiberglass, a material that rapidly gained popularity in the 1950s for its low weight, strength, and ease of use.
- Salerno’s project was a decade-long endeavor carried out in his garage. He fitted the Devin fiberglass body to the Triumph chassis, converting the hood to a tilting front end for better access and adjusting the body to lower the seating position for improved driving dynamics. He completed the car’s electrical system, interior, dashboard, and other essential components, dedicating approximately 2,000 hours over 10 years to the build.
- After Salerno’s untimely death in the late 1970s at approximately 40 years old, his wife Diane preserved the car for 20 years. It later passed to family friends Roger and Barb Philipsek, who maintained its original condition. In 2022, the car was acquired by Geoff Hacker and the team at Undiscovered Classics, who ensured its continued preservation.
- The Salerno Special was showcased at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in 2024, where it won a class award for its preservation. It was returned to running condition by specialist Robin James. For the first time since its inception, the car is now publicly listed for sale on eBay by Undiscovered Classics, who hope to find an enthusiast owner to continue its legacy.
Building The “Salerno Special”
In 1959 a young man in Chicago, Illinois called Salvatore “Sal” Salerno began what would be a 10 year process to build his own bespoke sports car in his garage. This was a time when a relatively new material called “fiberglass” was becoming more common for use in car body construction thanks to the fact that it was lightweight, strong, and easy to mould into a complex compound shapes. It’s been described as the carbon fiber of its day, and it wouldn’t be long before it was being used in everything from Formula One cars to Ferraris.
Here we see Salvatore “Sal” Salerno hard at work on the car, he did it all in his garage at his home in Chicago, Illinois and it took him 10 years to complete.
Sal opted to use a Triumph TR2/TR3 chassis as the foundation of his build. It was a box section steel chassis with independent front suspension, and an underslung axle in the rear allowing the chassis and body to sit lower, offering a better center of gravity for spirited driving.
The four cylinder, overhead valve Triumph engine wouldn’t be used in the car, instead Sal opted for a Willys Hurricane F161 six-cylinder engine which produced a similar amount of horsepower but offered more torque, and he kept the Borg-Warner 3 speed transmission with overdrive that came with the engine.
With his powered rolling chassis in place, the next step was figuring out what to do about the body. At the time, the largest and by far the most popular fiberglass body manufacturer in the world was Devin Enterprises out of California.
Devin Enterprises
Devin was founded by Bill Devin in 1955, offering fiberglass bodies, various automotive accessories, and complete handbuilt cars.
Devin Enterprises advertised extensively in the motoring magazines of the time, selling fiberglass bodies to many aspiring builders across the country. Bill Devin had devised an ingenious series of moulds that could be mixed and matched to created bodies of different wheelbases, track widths, and overall size, meaning that the company could build a body to fit many of the chassis of the time.
The Salerno Special is beautifully proportioned, with a cockpit that seats two comfortably, and it makes use of Triumph TR2/TR3 drivetrain components so spares will be easy to source.
This flexibility allowed them to offer a huge array of fiberglass bodies that would fit on everything from VW Beetle and Crosley bodies, to the more common British sports car chassis from MG, Triumph, and Austin Healey, right the way through to some of the larger American chassis of the time, with the 1949 Ford being a common donor.
Sal Salerno Gets To Work
Sal Salerno ordered himself a body for his TR2/TR3 chassis, and though it fit the 88 inch wheelbase and 45 inch track width perfectly, he decided to make a couple of major changes. The first change was to convert the regular hood opening into a tilting front end, so he glassed in the hood and created the cuts and hinges required.
Tilting fronts like this offer unrivaled access to the engine but also to the front suspension and brakes, all at the same time. The other key change that Sal made was to section the body which allowed more depth in the cockpit, with the driver and passenger now seated lower.
Once all this was done Sal set to work on all of the other jobs that were required to get the car running and on the road. It needed an electrical system, lights, a full interior, the dashboard needed to be populated with all the required gauges and switches, the windscreen needed to be fitted, and on it went.
The full build took approximately 10 years to complete, or approximately 2,000 hours of labor. 2,000 hours of labor works out to 38.5 hours per week for 52 weeks straight, essentially a full time job for a year, though of course many couldn’t dedicate all those hours to a car right away. As a result, builds could easily take a decade or more to complete.
Salerno modified the Devin body to have the tilt-forward hood you see here. This allows much better access to the engine and front suspension than a regular inset hood.
Tragically, Sal would die young, being only 40 or so years old when he passed in the late 1970s. By this time he had the “Salerno Special” special finished and on the road for a decade or more, and had doubtless enjoyed it a great deal during the Illinois summers.
After Sal’s death his wife Diane would keep the car safely tucked away in the garage, almost immune from the passing of time. She would eventually sell it to her friends Roger and Barb Philipsek who carefully kept the car in original condition for many years, before reaching out to the specialists at Undiscovered Classics in 2022, led by Geoff Hacker, and selling it to them in order to ensure it would be properly cared for.
The Salerno Special Is Now For Sale
It would be in the ownership of Undiscovered Classics that the car would be invited to the illustrious Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in 2024, where it received a class award for preservation and condition.
There is a brass plaque on the dashboard crediting Salvatore Salerno with the build. We can only wonder what he would think about his creation still fascinating people over 65 years after he started the build process.
This was only made possible by the work of mechanic (and possible wizard) Robin James, who traveled from Canada all the way to Tampa, Florida to work on the Salerno Special and get it back into full running and driving condition before the show. Geoff Hacker has created a book about the Salerno Special and published it online for free, it includes a deep dive into the history of the car and many more pictures of it being built originally, if you’d like to read it you’ll find it here.
The car is now being offered for sale publicly for the first time since Sal started building it all the way back in 1959. The team at Undiscovered Classics have it listed on eBay here, their hope it that it will go to an enthusiast who will preserve the car and share its story for decades to come.
Images courtesy of Geoff Hacker, Undiscovered Classics
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
