Battle Lines and the Brutality of Sport

Sports cars are a sensitive subject in the hot rod world. Many are cast aside, deemed too snooty and out of any red-blooded rodder’s realm of interest. These low-slung, high-priced machines were the enemy during our hobby’s golden era—and sometimes the drivers were even more so. Battle lines were drawn on the main drags and racetracks across the country. Tensions grew between the two camps.

“We ‘sporty car’ buffs take a lot of uncalled-for abuse from the rodders, but it isn’t deserved,�? David Blake of Tucson, Arizona, argued in a letter to Popular Hot Rodding in May ’63. “Show me any hot rod that produces up to two horses per cubic inch as in a formula junior car, and have it stand up to 200 laps on a grueling road course. Those supposedly ‘precision’ engines in dragsters have to run for a brief eight seconds, and that’s all.�?

George Blair, a rodder from St. Louis, Missouri, on the return: “The average hot rodder’s feeling toward sports cars is—ugh.�?

And then New Yorker William H. Mooney threw down the definitive statement: “Any respectable sports car enthusiast can sum up the entire hot rodding world in a single phrase: nuts to drag racing!�?

Mr. Mooney mustn’t have been too happy when he continued reading that month’s PHR. (Due to the heavy influx of drag racing articles, I’m not sure why he’d be leafing through it at all.) In May ’63, the staff kicked off their “Gallery of Great Cars�? with a machine that crossed the line between hot rod and sports car in a big way. The car: a Devin. The man: Steve Frase.

Starting with a custom chassis and a fiberglass body, Steve decided to build his Devin for the dragstrip. He dropped a hot smallblock Chevy—complete with Howard cam and Delta crank—between the rails and bolted on a GMC 6-71 blower complete with Scott injector (and a non-slot scoop). A tonneau cover, rudimentary rollbar and piecrust slicks on steelies completed the competition package.

Could this plastic fantastic stand up to Mr. Blake’s circuit racing? Absolutely not. Was it capable of charging down the strip at a fantastic rate of speed with the driver grinning while struggling to keep the shiny side up? No doubt. The PHR piece reported the car dipped into the 10s and more than 140mph.

Steve’s Devin is still a sports car and it’s still a hot rod. It takes the idea of high-horsepower/light body and applies it to a nonconventional platform. Although it had been done before with great success (think Dean Moon’s “Moonbeam”), I still like to think Steve— and the car—caused a stir for hot rodders and sports car guys alike.

—Joey Ukrop

Note: If you like this kind of stuff as much as I do, check out this thread about a Devin that isn’t a barn find, it’s not a shed find, but rather a roof find. A H.A.M.B.er from New Jersey bought it after five years and is digging for some history. It was raced from ’54 until ’64, ending as an AA/MSP.

Photos from Popular Hot Rodding, May 1963.