Curved Ball

JAY Donovan is a 24-year-old Canadian panel-beater who quickly tired of straightening busted Jeeps to pursue his passion for automotive design and traditional coach building. He set up his own workshop, BareSteel Design, two years ago on the south-west coast of British Columbia, just over the border from the US.

“Starting off more automotive-based, I quickly realised that as well as improving my craft in metal shaping, I needed to incorporate my desire for creativity and invention,” Jay says. “Though I really enjoy automotive design, and the history of coach building, to design and build one-of-a-kind cars requires a lot of resources, time, space and money, and it’s a very small client base. The reality of my situation and only having a small 400sq/ ft workshop brought me