1962 Devin C

Engine 2687cc air-cooled flat-six, OHV, dual Weber carburettors Power c175bhp Transmission Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive Steering Recirculating ball Suspension Front: trailing links, transverse torsion bar, telescopic dampers. Rear: trailing arms, swing axles, coil springs, telescopic dampers Brakes Drums Weight 626kg Top speed 120mph (est) 0-60mph 6sec (est) becomes apparent that even 175bhp is plenty of power in a little roadster that weighs little more than 600kg. Going up through the gears, discovering a shift that’s as accurate under pressure as it was when manoeuvring, you find acceleration that’s rapid enough to induce a broad grin, and the low-cut screen makes it feel even quicker than it is.

The course gets twisty, revealing a drum-brake set-up that’s more than up to the task, and linear steering that acts with great transparency, so you always know what’s going on. And it just darts from corner to corner, the rear-mounted engine making for fabulous alacrity yet never threatening to take over entirely. While latebraking into a sharper-than-expected bend raises the hairs on your neck exactly as you’d expect, in fact the car reacts benignly, simply shedding the speed, transferring the weight onto the nose without swinging you backwards into the trees. Of which there are lots.

Windblown, laughing and slightly hysterical, I pull up the car at Pebble Beach Lodge and hand the keys back to Brian Miller. The loader is waiting to take the Devin back to his home in Arizona, which seems like its natural playground: all that space to play.

While Bill Devin never shook the world with quite the seismic resonance of Carroll Shelby, the evidence here suggests that he deserves to be remembered rather better. Anybody who owns one of the 125 cars he created is very lucky indeed.