Harry Miller Indy Roadster

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10234955194521047&set=pcb.10234955196561098

Sept 1923, Tommy Milton heading for the Beverly Hills board track to race, in the HCS Special, a 1923 Miller 122, the first Miller (chassis and engine) to win the Indy 500 (thank you Dave!)

Like most of the great drivers from that era, Milton was a top-flight mechanic and self-taught engineer. Milton started his career as a driver with J. Alex Sloan's state fair automobile barnstorming act before making the move into AAA racing in 1916. 

Blind in one eye from birth, Milton drove for Fred and Augie Duesenberg's team and scored his first win in 1917 on the concrete oval at Providence, Rhode Island.

Milton was at Daytona Beach in 1920 to run a 'Beach car', a twin-engined Duesenberg designed specifically by Milton to break the land speed record, which it did, 5 mph over de Palma's record

Milton raced at some demonstration runs Havana with other early racing superstars Barney Oldfield and Ralph de Palma in 1920 as well

Milton won the AAA board track title in 1920 and '21 and during the height of the board track era between 1917-'25 Milton won twenty-three AAA championship races, including the 1921 and '23 Indy 500s.

The above Miller has a logo on the cowl above the word special, and on the grill, it's actually the logo of  Harry Stutz

Tommy Milton was the inspiration  in 1926 of  Finn Frolich's scupture placed in front of Richfield gas stations  https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/08/finn-frolich-architect-and-scuptor-of.html

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=9135969956504814&set=gm.1420979279079904&idorvanity=319578812553295

1927 Miller 91, a thing of beauty

 

https://www.classicdriver.com/en/car/miller/91-rear-drive-racing-car/1927/1067339

2 decades of Indy winners

 

https://www.facebook.com/HarryMillerClub

such a cool looking race car

 what a cool paint job graphic, that's well thought out

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=957082539856545&set=pcb.957082569856542

Harry Miller made some very cool cars.... a lot of them had a get together at the 2025 Harry Miller Club Grid & Pit Tour at the Milwaukee Mile

Skip the 1st 1:56 to get to see the cars on the track

https://www.facebook.com/HarryMillerClub

Ever since nonprofit Cool Cars for Kids, Inc. (CCfK) established the Philadelphia Concours d’Elegance, Coach Dick Vermeil not only joined its board, but has participated every year in the event with his own 1926 Ford Miller Schofield Special sprint car, built by Bignotti

It belonged to, and was raced by, his father Louis Vermeil, a 1995 National Sprint Car Hall of Fame inductee. His father fielded it from 1949-1954

Best known as a National Football League head coach with the Philadelphia Eagles (1976-1982), St. Louis Rams (1997-1999) and Kansas City Chiefs (2001-2005), Dick Vermeil has a comprehensive and hands-on knowledge of Sprint Car Racing due to the fact that his father Louis Vermeil was one of the top Northern California car owners for 40 years.

Because his father worked in his shop on customer cars during the day and race cars late into the night – and his mother keep things going in that near-non-stop operation with good food and wine – the building was called the “Owl Garage.”

Louis Vermeil got interested in auto racing in the early 1920s when he saw such drivers as Jimmy Murphy, Tommy Milton, Ralph DePalma and Peter DePaolo turning laps at over 100 mph on the wooden boards of the 1.25-mile San Francisco Speedway in San Carlos.

The No. 7 was built in 1926 by Al Bignotti, who as a mechanic for his crew-chief brother George worked on six winning Indy 500 teams with drivers A.J. Foyt (1961 and 1964), Graham Hill (1966), Al Unser Sr. (1970-1971) and Gordon Johncock (1983).

And the old race car still has its original in-line, 4-cylinder, 200.5-cubic-inch Ford Model A Engine equipped with twin single-barrel Winfield Model SR Carburetors (which have good flow, atomization and adjustability), a WICO Model X Magneto and a Miller-Schofield Overhead-Valve Conversion Kit that help the four-banger produce an estimated 120 horsepower.

This cast-iron, detachable cylinder head is one of the most-celebrated of its era as it was designed in 1928 by legendary engineer and draftsman Leo Goossen for his boss Harry A. Miller – the wizard of Miller Engines and Racing Cars who conceived the idea – and the venture was funded by a group of businessmen led by George L. Schofield. Fitted with forged-steel rocker arms to actuate four intake and four exhaust valves, the Miller-Schofield unit – which was only made from January-December 1930 – has a 5.75:1 compression ratio versus the stock head’s 4.22:1 rating and it uses the Model A’s camshaft, push rods, forged-steel crankshaft and cast-iron engine block to triple the engine’s 40 horsepower.

https://www.philadelphiaconcours.com/home
https://www.philadelphiaconcours.com/post/louis-vermeil-special

Miller board track racers at Pebble Beach.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/197491484165115/posts/935017553745834

1935 Ford-Miller Indy car. It started as a two man Indy car and eventually was converted to one man after the war.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1111567445695404/permalink/1139802586205223/

I had forgotten all about the Indy 500 racers that Tucker sponsored, but now I understand why his cars were then named Torpedos

http://autohistory.blog.hu/2008/09/27/egy_ember_es_az_almai_preston_tucker_tortenete

in 1928 at Indianapolis, Leon Duray's Miller set a lap record of 124.02 mph that held for 9 years. In a 91 cu in supercharged inline 8 that Harry Miller just had to reduce in 1926 from 122cu in to meet AAA's new rules

They then took it to the Packard test track and set a closed course record of 148.2 mph and then went to Muroc (a dry lake used in the 1920s before it was closed to the public and El Mirage was chosen) and set a speed of 164 mph

the 91s were incredible until the rules were changed again by AAA, just 3 years later in 1929

Muroc is named after the Corum brothers of Rosamund of about 100 years ago, but the Air Force changed the name of the dry lake from Muroc to Rogers after a pilot who crashed there. http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2016/05/dry-lakes-trivia.html

http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com/2017/06/1927-miller-race-car.html

just a good looking Miller, the 1925 Jr Eight

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155037963049306&set=a.487455259305.271444.601289305&type=3

1931 Miller V16 Racer - The only V16-engined Miller racing car ever built

https://www.facebook.com/anibal134

1926 Miller 91

at the Canepa Motorsports Museum. On loan from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum, this is one of the legendary Miller Front Wheel Drive Indy cars driven by "The Black Devil" Leon Duray, and set speed records at Indy and Monza.

Photos by Canepa Staff Photographer, Zach Todd.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/388345988038515/

More good stuff from Empi Dog blogger

above is the 1969 race participants

I'm hoping he tucked his chin to his chest

http://empidog-empidog.blogspot.com/

the Offy is a rip off of a Puegot? Say it ain't so!

A historically significant early racing star, Bob Burman, poses in his Peugeot in Oklahoma City, in 1915. (he won)

Bob had just received the car back from Harry Miller, who had rebuilt it's blown engine.

Miller copied the Puegot for his own very successful engines, which in turn, became the famous Offy engine that dominated American open wheel racing for decades.

Found on https://www.facebook.com/indianaracingmemorialassociation?fref=nf

1933 Miller sprint car

Just taking a moment to appreciate chrome. Yup... I do that.

This car belongs to the Arizona Open Wheel Racing Museum in Phoenix http://www.azracingmuseum.org/index.php/az-open-wheel-racing-museum