Salvatore Salerno started building his sports car in 1959. He started with a Triumph frame and finished it with a Devin sports car body. Salerno installed a Willys 6-cylinder Hurricane F-head engine with a Willys 4-speed transmission. This is the same engine used by Brooks Stevens sports/race car called the “Excalibur”, early Woodill Wildfire sports cars, Multiplex sports cars and 400+ Kaiser Darrin sports cars built in the mid 1950s.

Salerno altered the body in subtle ways to make it a flip front which allowed greater and faster access to the engine area of the car. The body was also made taller which made the cockpit deeper and lower for the driver and passenger. A hood scoop was also added which tunneled fresh air into the cockpit and was operated with a vent control on the dashboard.

Salerno’s Devin has always been garage kept. After his death in the 1990s, the sports car was saved by friends of the family who retained and preserved the car until 2022 when the stewardship of Salvatore’s Devin was taken over by Geoffrey Hacker of Undiscovered Classics. This car is one of only three known postwar American Specials in original condition. One of these “Specials” (an Allied “Cisitalia” Swallow) appeared at Pebble Beach just a few years ago.

This car appears today in the same condition without change from how it was original completed by Salvatore Salerno. Bill Devin provided a prolific number of sports and racing car bodies used in the 1950s and early 60s. This car is one of the few built in period without change, and represents what people were doing in designing and building their own cars.