Our Story

Every family has something that gets passed down. In this one, it's steel, chrome, and an inability to leave a good car alone.

It starts with Ford. James Spiroff's grandparents settled in the Detroit area, and it was there that his grandfather spent a career as a designer on Ford's line, with James's father following him into the company on the business side. Two generations, one company, in a city that built half the cars in America. James grew up inside that world, sketching cars before he could drive one and entering the AutoRama Automobile Design Competition six years straight through high school — winning first place every time. Nobody had to talk him into loving cars. It was simply the air in the house.

He didn't go straight at it, though. James went to art school, then spent years as a professional ceramic artist — real recognition, national exhibitions, awards most people spend a career chasing and never catch. He still throws pottery today. It's not the focus anymore, but the love for it, and the hands for it, never left him. From there he built Deviant Design, a custom motorcycle shop that grew into a real manufacturing operation: a ten-person team, a floor full of CNC machines and welding stations, bikes that got the company written up nationally. Then 2008 happened. The financial crisis did to Deviant Design what it did to countless small manufacturers that year, and the doors closed.

Around that same stretch of years, James bought a 1968 Lincoln Continental sedan, with no idea yet that it would end up defining the next chapter of the family's story. He was working full time in tool design at the time, rebuilding the Continental on nights and weekends, and along the way started machining a few parts for it that were no longer being made. Word got around. A few parts became a small catalog. The catalog became Detroit Deviant, launched in 2017 to build real restoration parts and custom work for 1961-1969 Continentals, done the way the cars deserve.

The name carries real weight, and it's intentional. It's a nod to a family that's been Ford people for three generations, and to the fact that the cars we build for rolled off Detroit assembly lines in the first place. But this shop has always run out of Florida, and that's a home this family is just as proud to claim. Detroit is where the blood comes from. Florida is where the work gets done.

James kept building the business around that day job for years, waiting for the moment he could finally leave it behind. That moment came in January 2026, when he stepped away to run Echelon Design Works — the parent company behind Detroit Deviant — full time.

He didn't stay on his own for long. His son Gavin has been in and around this shop for as long as he can remember, showing up every weekend from sixth grade on and taking on more responsibility with each year that passed. This year, Gavin graduated from Florida State University with a degree in Commercial Entrepreneurship and came home — not to work for his father, but to work with him. He's a partner in the business now, pushing it forward on the operations side while staying just as hands-on in the shop as he's always been.

That original '68 Continental is still around. James is turning it into the first custom convertible hardtop of its kind — the car that started this whole thing, still teaching the family something new.

Four generations of car people. One family, still building.