Devin Enterprises
Devin Enterprises was an American automotive manufacturer that operated from 1955 to 1964. Devin was mainly known for producing high quality fiberglass car bodies that were sold as kits, but they also produced automotive accessories as well as complete automobiles. The company was founded by Bill Devin.
The assets and intellectual property of Devin Enterprises were acquired by Devin Sports Cars LLC of Glendale California U.S.A, incorporated in 2001. These assets and intellectual properties were then acquired in 2019 by Devin Sports Cars, LLC of Abington Pennsylvania U.S.A, where they exist today.
The Devin Panhard
When Bill Devin sold his Ferrari 250 MM coupe to a buyer in Michigan in 1954 he took a 1953 Deutsch-Bonnet Le Mans barquette in trade as partial payment. Devin also bought out the stock of a Panhard dealer in California, acquiring ten chassis with engines but no bodies.Devin designed his own ladder frame for a custom race car that used the engine and front-wheel drive transaxle from the Panhards. The wheelbase of this chassis was. Devin also took a mold of the body of the DB Le Mans, made some changes, and began to produce custom bodies for his new car. This was his first experience working with fiberglass.
With help from Norton motorcycle racer Don Evans, Devin adapted the cylinder barrels, cylinder heads and pistons from the Norton Manx motorcycle to the two-cylinder boxer Panhard crankcase, roller-bearing crankshaft assembly and piston rods. He then fabricated a custom manifold that accepted two-barrel side-draft Weber carburetors. All of these alterations did not affect the displacement of the engine, leaving the 79.5 mm bore and 75 mm stroke unchanged for a total displacement of 745 cc.
What made the engine unique was the method Devin used to operate the valves. He abandoned the Panhard's pushrod OHV system and contacted the L. H. Gilmer company about using their toothed belts to drive the Manx cylinder heads' overhead cams. Development of synchronous toothed-belts was begun by the Gilmer company around 1940. Their primary application had been as a means of transmitting power in textile mills. Devin's use of the technology to drive the valve train in the Devin-Panhard engine was the first time toothed belts were used in a timing belt application. Devin did not apply for a patent on this innovation.
The Devin-Panhards went into production in 1955 with engine options that included OHV, SOHC and DOHC variations of 750 cc and later 850 cc displacements. Another version of the engine came with a MAG supercharger, which bumped the car up into the 1100 cc class.
Devin bodies and kits
In their earliest advertising copy Devin Enterprises listed a mailing address of P.O. Box 357, Fontana, California. Later on they used a street address of 44500 Sierra Highway, Lancaster, California and later still 10156 Rush, South El Monte, California before moving operations to their most well-known location at 9800 E. Rush Street, El Monte, California.Image:1957 Devin MG Chevrolet.JPG|thumb|1957 Devin MG with a Chevrolet V8
Image:Paris - RM Auctions - 5 février 2014 - Ferrari Monza Spider - 1955 - 001.jpg|thumb|The real Scaglietti-bodied Ferrari 750 Monza of 1955
After gaining experience making complete fiberglass bodies with the Devin-Panhards, Devin Enterprises expanded into production of fiberglass bodies to be sold to builders of custom and one-off specialty cars. Production started in 1956.
The first design Devin produced was an attractive roadster-style body.
The most commonly attributed source for the Devin body's shape is that it was developed from a mold taken of an Ermini 357 Sport 1100 with aluminium bodywork by Scaglietti. The car was serial number 1255, and was owned by James Orr, who was a friend of Bill Devin's and who had raced the second Devin-Panhard ever produced. The Ermini's body closely resembled the design that Scaglietti had done for the larger Ferrari 750 Monza, and some of Devin's own early ad copy refers to these bodies as Devin Monzas. This body was advertised widely at a price of US$295.00, and so at times is also called the '295' body.
Apart from the appealing shape and reasonable price, two things distinguished the Devin bodies from their competition. One was the wide range of sizes of bodies available. The Devin body mold was not a simple one-piece shape. Instead, an assortment of 50 differently sized molds of individual sections of the body were used. These could be assembled in a variety of ways to create one of 27 possible sizes for a customer's fiberglass body. This allowed the company to produce a recognizable Devin body that would fit a wide variety of chassis, from the tiny Crosley, through the British MGs, Triumphs and Healys right up to some American car frames.
The other feature that made the Devin bodies popular was the high quality of the finish. Devin used fibreglass cloth for the outer layer of their bodywork rather than the coarser glass mat often used by other manufacturers. This produced a very smooth surface finish on the bodies. Devin bodies were always very smooth and the quality of finish on panel edges and large flat surfaces was often better than that of competitors' products.
Later, kits could be bought that included a Devin-designed ladder frame as an option along with the body.
Devin quickly became the world's largest and most successful producer of aftermarket fiberglass bodies. Between direct sales and dealers Devin bodies were delivered throughout the Americas as well as Europe, South Africa and Saudi Arabia.
Well-known Specials
----The wide range of sizes that the Devin body was made in allowed it to be used on a very broad spectrum of cars. Rebodied Alfas, MGs, Triumphs and Healys were common as were specials built from a variety of American parts. Devin bodies were also fitted to rear-engined Volkswagens, Porsches, and Renaults as well as a front-wheel drive Panhard Dyna. Many of these cars became successful racers. Others became known because of who their builder or owner was. This is selection of these specials.
Ak Miller Specials
Akton "Ak" Miller was a long-time hot-rodder and racing driver as well as NHRA vice-president. He built a series of five or six Miller-Devin specials powered by a variety of engines. Three of the cars raced at the Pikes Peak hill climb.Miller built his first Devin-bodied special in 1958 for the Pikes Peak hill climb. Built to run in the sports car class that had been announced the previous year, the car was named the Hot Rod Magazine Special in honor of its sponsor. Miller fabricated a custom steel tube frame that used a coil-spring front suspension from a 1956 Chevrolet and a Ford rear axle with a Halibrand quick-change differential. Springing was by torsion bars. The engine was a small-block Chevrolet that had been bored and stroked to and equipped with Hilborn injection. The 4-speed manual transmission was from a Corvette. The finished car weighed. Miller's Devin-Chevy won its class at Pikes Peak that year.
The next year Miller built an all-new car with another Devin body. A new ladder chassis of steel tube was used, with front suspension from a 1953 Chevrolet. Brakes came from a 1952 Lincoln and the steering box from a 1937 Ford. This car was also called the Miller-Hanson Special in recognition of George Hanson, who had fronted the $1800 needed to build the car. The engine for the Miller-Hanson special was an Oldsmobile, modified to displace and fitted with four Rochester carburetors mounted on a drag racing intake manifold. The transmission was the same as that used in the Miller-Chevy. The total weight of the car was. At the Pikes Peak climb the car developed engine problems but still won its class. The next year Miller could only manage fourth place, but when the car went back to Pikes Peak in 1961 it won again.
The third Miller special was built in 1962. Ford had approached Miller and arranged for him to use a factory-stock 406 FE V8 engine. The car won again at Pikes Peak that year. The following year it would win again, this time with a Ford 427 engine. After the 1963 race, the car was retired and converted for street use. For 1964 a new car was built using an AC Bristol chassis and a 289 CID engine. The car was renamed the Cobra Kit Special. It did not win that year but returned to the winner's circle in 1965. In 1966 the engine was once again a Ford 427 and this would be the final Miller win in the sports car class at Pikes Peak. The following year the class was discontinued.
Dean Moon "Moonbeam" Special
, dry lake racer and founder of MOON Speed Equipment, built a Devin-bodied special called Moonbeam in partnership with NHRA president Wally Parks. The car was meant to be the first of a series of cars optimized for straight-line runs on the drag strip and the Bonneville salt flats. A box-type frame was fabricated from mild steel tubing by Harley Klentz. The chassis had a track width of and a nominal wheelbase of, but the wheelbase could be adjusted by up to. Front and rear axles were both solid, with the front being an I-beam unit from a Ford and the rear also being Ford but with a Halibrand quick-change center. Suspension was done by Monroe coil-over shock absorbers and the axles were located by trailing arms and a Watt's linkage. Brakes were Mercury-Bendix and the wheels were magnesium Halibrands. The first engine used was a Chevrolet small-block V8 with a GMC 4-71 Roots-type supercharger blowing through a Potvin intake manifold and Hilborn fuel injection. When this engine did not perform as expected, it was replaced with a Chevrolet.Moonbeam held strip records at the Pomona, Henderson Nevada, Riverside, and San Gabriel tracks and also held the Modified Sports and the 1320 record of the American Hot Rod Association.