Solved - MJW #828 - Cleary Devin Crosley Monza Special 1957

[woodinsight]

Identify the make and year of this small sports car for a point.

[woodinsight]

Experts?

[woodinsight]

Pros?

[Allan L]

Well the Fiat 500 wheels make one think of the 1940s/50s Formula 3 cars and their developments like the Cooper T4.
This seems to have the seats so far back that it must be front engined so perhaps it's one of those cars one reads about, like René Chaix's sportscar that became a Formula 3 car.

[woodinsight]

It is front-engined but it runs today in historic events as a sports car little changed from the photo (showing it as first built)

[woodinsight]

The car as it appears today -

[Paul Jaray]

That's a Cleary Special!
From a known site about etceterinis:

1957 Cleary Devin Crosley Monza Special; Mike Cleary collection. Letter from Mike Cleary in 2007: "The short story is that a friend of mine and I got hooked on doing a sports racer in senior year of High School (1954). After much discussion on what size to build we settled on Hmod as the only one our very limited facilities could support. Another friend happened to have the remains of a Fiat Topolino which we bought for our starting point. Mr. Devin came along later with an ad in Road and Track to save us the agony of building a body and we were off to the races. I ran the car from Sept. 1957 until the winter of 1962 when we scavenged the car to build another Hmod. I sold the Devin body to finance the new car. In the late 1980's I got a proper sized derelict Devin body from Bob Schulhof and decided to put the old original car back together again. It took a while but by the early 90's it was up and running again."

[Otto Puzzell]

It was under our noses, all along

http://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/index.php?topic=15268.0

[woodinsight]

That's a Cleary Special!
From a known site about etceterinis:

1957 Cleary Devin Crosley Monza Special; Mike Cleary collection. Letter from Mike Cleary in 2007: "The short story is that a friend of mine and I got hooked on doing a sports racer in senior year of High School (1954). After much discussion on what size to build we settled on Hmod as the only one our very limited facilities could support. Another friend happened to have the remains of a Fiat Topolino which we bought for our starting point. Mr. Devin came along later with an ad in Road and Track to save us the agony of building a body and we were off to the races. I ran the car from Sept. 1957 until the winter of 1962 when we scavenged the car to build another Hmod. I sold the Devin body to finance the new car. In the late 1980's I got a proper sized derelict Devin body from Bob Schulhof and decided to put the old original car back together again. It took a while but by the early 90's it was up and running again."

It sure is! Well done!