After a little ski weekend to spend the calories taken during the Christmas meal, here backagain... There are still many great cars during the RM Sotheby's Arizona sale in Phoenix on 27 January but these are cars I already talked about in previous posts and I don't have much more to say about them. But there are some true gems that I didn't know the existence like this very cool 1959 Devin C :

A new car that I didn't know, not even this American automotive manufacturer Devin. Always something to discover, I love it.

If you want to see some of the cars sold during the Arizona sale through RM Sotheby's, here's a follow-up :



1963 Apollo 3500 GT	1988 Cizeta-Moroder
Unknown	Unknown

History of Devin C

First we discover the car manufacturer Devin founded in 1955 by Bill Devin (1915-2000), Californian racing driver and independent entrepreneur. The company mainly produced fiberglass car bodies but not only as we can see with his first success with the Devin SS, a race car with a V8 engine and a coackwork influenced by Scaglietti :

Devin SS (source : classiccars.com)

Another great model was the Devin C. The car was presented in 1959 with an upgraded chassis of the older version, Devin D, in order to install a new Chevrolet motor as Porsche stopped to sell components to one of his competitor on race tracks. It was offered as a component car (in kit) for $US 2,500 or completed car like this example for $US 4,500. Only 21 full car were built.

This example (chassis n°DC1-001-2) was the first complete car which was loaned to the Granatelli Brothers. Andy and Vince wanted to break the record at the Bonneville Speed Trials (in Utah, Bonneville Salt Flats where numerous land speed records were held). They installed a Paxton centrifugal supercharger but they couldn't organize an official run despite a top speed of 265 kmh / 165 mph. Without the supercharger, the car did some drag races in California like the 1961 Los Angeles Times-Mirror Grand Prix at Riverside against legendary drivers (Jim Hall, Dan Gurney, Stirling Moss, Roger Penske...).

Specification

This Devin C was equipped with Chevrolet six-cylinder engine known as the Chevrolet Turbo-Air 6 engine mated with 4-speed transaxle. On the first Devin C, it can produce 80 hp at 4,400 rpm. But in 1962, Chevrolet presented a new 150 hp turbocharged engine made only for Devin.

During its last restoration, this example had a Corvair high-performance motor with Weber 40 IDA carburetors producing 180 hp. The body was close as possible to the original specifications with small modifications like a wraparound windscreeen and covered headlamps.