Smoke On The Water

By the early Sixties — let’s say, just before the dawn of the American muscle car era, small-batch fiberglass sports car bodies had become a cottage industry. “Yeah, but,” you say, “Bill Tritt had started popping his Glasspar roadsters out of their molds in ’49!” And you’d be right, of course. But the idea of indie ‘glass shops building hot rods and roadsters really became a thing roughly 10 years later. Bocars, Devins, Woodill, Byers, Victress… the list of small manufacturers was probably longer than most realize.

Their formula was fairly simple: Design a car body that could be easily turned into a mold and produced, choose a fast motor that was easily sourced, build or use an existing rolling chassis, bolt it all up, and bob’s your uncle. The countryside wasn’t carpet-bombed by these things, but if you wanted an alternative to the known automakers of the day, you could always find an ad in the back of your favorite car magazine and write for a brochure… read more >