Bill Devin started out racing a modified Crosley on a car salesman’s budget — then built a modular fiberglass body mold nobody else in the industry had figured out. By 1958, his shop was shipping nearly 100 body shells a week worldwide. This particular roadster is one of only 16 built to this exact spec, running a 283 Corvette V8.
Bill Devin built himself a reputation as a racer in the late ’40’s and later won respect as a quality manufacturer of high speed performance race car body shells, His company was Devin Enterprises, based in El Monte, California. The company produced up to 100 fiberglass body shells per week towards the end of the 1950’s which were shipped throughout the world. The roadster pictured here is “period correct” and very rare with only 16 units produced. With a 283 Corvette engine under the hood, Road and Track recorded a 0-60 time of seven seconds, the quarter mile in 14 seconds and rated its top speed at 130 mph.
MCF thanks Gateway Classic Cars for the images displayed here.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Before he ever built a car people would pay for, Bill Devin was racing whatever he could get his hands on — including a modified Crosley Hot Shot he bought on a Chrysler-Plymouth salesman’s income. That racing background eventually turned into something nobody else in the industry had figured out yet: a fiberglass body mold so cleverly engineered it could be resized to fit dozens of different chassis. By 1958, that idea had turned into a full-blown manufacturing operation. The roadster pictured here is one of the rarest survivors of that era — and its performance numbers explain exactly why enthusiasts still chase them down today.
The Modular Fiberglass Idea Nobody Else Had
Devin’s breakthrough wasn’t just using fiberglass — plenty of small builders were experimenting with it by the mid-1950s. His innovation was building the body mold in roughly 50 separate sections that could be combined in different configurations, letting Devin Enterprises produce the same basic roadster shape in as many as 27 different sizes to fit whatever chassis a customer brought them. That modularity let his El Monte, California shop scale up fast: by 1958, Devin Enterprises was turning out close to 100 body shells a week and shipping them worldwide.
Only 16 Built This Way
This particular roadster is a ‘period correct’ example, one of just 16 units produced in this configuration, and it carries a 283-cubic-inch Corvette V8 under that fiberglass skin. Road and Track tested a car built to this spec and recorded a 0-60 time of seven seconds flat, a quarter mile in 14 seconds, and a top speed of 130 mph — numbers that held their own against far more expensive European sports cars of the day. For a company that started with one man and a modified Crosley, that’s a remarkable legacy to leave behind.
A Company That Didn’t Last, But Left a Mark
Devin Enterprises only operated from 1955 to 1964, a relatively short run compared to the established automakers of the era, but its influence on the kit-car and specialty-body industry outlasted the company itself. Devin proved that a small operation with the right manufacturing idea could compete with much larger companies, and surviving examples like this one are treated today as important artifacts of America’s homegrown sports car scene. Every surviving Devin roadster is effectively a piece of that story, built by hand during a brief window when a single determined racer could still take on Detroit with fiberglass and ambition.
The Devin D: From Bodies to a Complete Car
Devin’s business eventually grew beyond selling bare fiberglass shells into building the Devin D, a complete turnkey sports car assembled around a chosen chassis and drivetrain, the natural next step for a company that had already proven it could mass-produce composite bodywork at scale.
A Body of Choice for SCCA Racers
Devin’s lightweight, easily resized fiberglass shells became a popular choice among Sports Car Club of America club racers of the late 1950s who wanted to build a competitive special without the cost of a factory-built European sports car.
Competing With Detroit’s Own Fiberglass Sports Car
Devin’s roadsters arrived at almost exactly the same moment Chevrolet was proving fiberglass bodywork could be mass-produced with the Corvette, meaning a small California shop and America’s largest automaker were experimenting with the same material at the same time, for very different audiences and at very different scales.
The Company Didn’t Outlast the Decade
Devin Enterprises wound down its operations by the mid-1960s as larger manufacturers began offering their own composite-bodied sports cars, narrowing the market for a small independent body builder that had once shipped shells worldwide.
A Genuine Piece of American Specialty-Car History
Surviving Devin-bodied cars occupy a specific niche in American automotive history, predating the kit-car boom of later decades and representing one of the earliest successful fiberglass body businesses in the country, built by a man who started out simply trying to go racing.
Not Just for American V8s
Because Devin’s fiberglass shells were designed to be resized across roughly two dozen different configurations, they ended up fitted to a wide range of chassis beyond American V8-powered specials, including some European sports-racing platforms, broadening Devin’s customer base well past hot-rodders alone.
Part of a Bigger Postwar Specials Movement
Devin’s business grew out of a broader postwar American hobby of returning servicemen and hands-on mechanics building their own ‘specials,’ combining surplus parts, salvaged chassis, and new fiberglass bodywork into cars that could outrun far more expensive factory-built sports cars of the day.
A Genuinely Cheaper Way Into a Fast Car
Buying a Devin body and building a special around it cost meaningfully less than importing a comparable European sports car of the same era, part of why the company found a steady stream of customers even while its overall operation stayed relatively small.
Why Fiberglass Won Out for Small Builders
Fiberglass let small operations like Devin Enterprises produce bodywork without the enormous tooling investment steel stamping required, making it the material of choice for nearly every low-volume American sports car builder of the 1950s, not just the biggest names like Chevrolet.
Magazine Testing Gave Small Builders Credibility
Period publications like Road and Track played an outsized role in validating small specialty manufacturers, since an independently verified 0-60 time or top speed figure carried real weight with potential buyers who had never heard of a shop like Devin Enterprises before reading about it in print.
A Career That Didn’t End When the Company Did
Bill Devin continued working in automotive design and fiberglass fabrication after Devin Enterprises wound down, carrying the same hands-on, small-shop approach into later projects even after his original company stopped building complete cars.
Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Republished by Blog Post Promoter
