Most of you may already know how much Harry Miller was a genius, but this car is one of his most unique technical high points. Harry took his personal street running V16 engine, re-tuned it, and put it in a Miller designed Cord chassis, creating the ... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
It's amazing they are able to find, and restore these old cars. Any one know what it sold for in 2009?
i just toured a place that had an original miller and several offys. 16 valve, tri-ignitions, supercharged, you name it. pics are coming, hopefully this weekend
Wow, that car is incredible. The restored car looks VERY nice. Do you think it was originally finished that nice? I really have no idea... Malcolm
Totally off thread... I just happened to be cruzing the RM catalog for Amelia Isl next weekend. Found this Deusy Indy car. Other cool cars, too. Gary http://www.rmauctions.com/FeatureCars.cfm?SaleCode=AM11&CarID=r119&fc=0
Car porn in the morning, thanks for sharing that one. I picked up a copy of Indy Cars 1911-1939 off Amazon the other day (used) http://www.amazon.com/Indy-Cars-191...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299170588&sr=1-1 And it is a great soft cover picture book of pre war Indy car photos. I've spent a few hours on the Miller Offy site that Rich posted above and turn up the sound when you listen to them run the engines up.
What a stunning car. That front axle and suspension alone is a work of art (although it was never that shiny originally).
Thank you for the wonderful article and beautiful pix Jive-Bomber. You know, if you show this car to even the most jaded, non-car-person and ask them 'What is it?' even they will instantly retort back to you ' Oh, that? That's a race car'...that's when you know you have an icon in your midst.
It was! That was a Harry Miller hallmark-superfine finish regardless of cost. Even his failures looked good.
I dig the cool quad-semielliptical spring suspension set ups at both ends. It's a bit like a parallel 4 bar set up, but without a need for coil springs or a panhard bar. And imagine how tunable that would be with the ability to add and remove leaves. And it's super compact. It wouldn't cause any clearance problems under the floor in the back. Very elegant.
This is similiar to the engine that Frank Lockhart used in the Blackhawk. He worked with Miller on the design. After he crashed the engine was used at Indy and in other race cars.
I just love stuff like this! I was watching "To Please a Lady" last night and I still get a kick out of the sceen when thay are assembling the engine.
<HR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #e5e5e5; COLOR: #e5e5e5" SIZE=1> <!-- / icon and title --><!-- message --> The Miller 91 has long been my favorite race car, but this beauty is something else! http://www.milleroffy.com/Photo &%... Gallery.htm
Fantastic piece of engineering. on the Miller Offy site there are a few sound bites of a V16 http://milleroffy.com/Photo & Sound Gallery.htm#Videos <--- scroll down for sound bites.
Really beautiful car. Personally though I think it's a shame when cars are over restored as this one appears to be. I think they lose a bit of the "all business" attitude a race car should have.
But miller cars were all this good in the day..that was what he was known for, duesenburgs were known to show up looking like crap although they Ran well.
the car illustrated in the photo's has been a visual refference/reminder/inspiration for me since first seeing the pics on that site, although I am especally interested to know what the body colour is, anyone dare to offer a suggestion? Cheers, Drewfus
Miller Offys, it just don't get any better. Didn't someone here help rebuild one of the 2 V16 boat engines a couple years ago> I remember a run up vid with sound. Also on the Miller site, take a listen to the Miller Ford running up. They had the mic in the car and you can hear him slide the clutch to get it rolling and the gear whine, awesome.
Beautiful. The original post mentions it was re-bodied. By 1937 didn't the mechanic seat get eliminated? Was it ever rebodied as a single-seater?
I posted a bunch of build shots of both engines and shots of them on the Dyno. Both engines were done in Cincinnati at ZAKIRA'S garage. ZAKIRA'S are Miller specialists. They own the majority amount of Harry Millers original wooden bucks and blueprints. A lot of the Mold bucks and original PENCIL drawn prints for the car shown here can be found there today! Also, they are in the process of assembling Two more V-16 Millers right now! VERY EXCITING too see these cars come together and surface once again. GREAT POST! Such a HUGE amount of Technology in Auto Racing today can be traced back to HARRY MILLER. I highly recomend reading the book! the Miller Dynasty Thanks!
Actually, for this car, the V-16, the term "Miller Offy" is a bit of a misnomer. But, that's O.K.! Fred Offenhauser didn't take over the engine patterns for the Miller engines until Harry Miller went bankrupt in the mid-thirties. And then, Offenhauser concentrated on the four-bangers, for the most part. The first "Offy" engined car won Indy at the hands of Kelly Petillo in, I believe 1935. There's an interesting story about this V-16. It is said that "Jiggler Joe" Gemsa got hold of the original engine; and cut the crankcase in two, making two V-8's to go into AAA Champ Cars. The story further goes that Chuck Davis obtained a bunch of Miller parts to make this particular car. The frame and body panels were made "of whole cloth", as many Millers running to day are. Davis had Gemsa, as the tale says, build another crankcase, put the four Miller blocks on it; and, "wahlla'! The V-16. Nevertheless, it and a Miller 122 were on display at Monterey, the year before last; and their workmanship is exquisite.
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