Card Design by Gary Johnson / urania 235
Card Design by Gary Johnson / urania 235
Chuck Miller
By the time Chuck Miller graduated from Lincoln Park High School in 1961, he was already obsessed with cars, having created models with creativity and painstaking detail. At 15, he won a contest sponsored by a local hobby shop by transforming a 1954 Ford two-door into a convertible “Rebel Rouser,” named after the Duane Eddy instrumental hit. As Miller later put it, he “got all excited” about the little car: “Cut the doors. Cut vents into her. Put in gold corduroy pleats, a TV, a telephone, changed the headlights, chopped the body, and won the contest. After that, I knew I’d make my living with cars.”
When the young Miller wasn’t sketching cars or working on models, he was wrenching the real thing, securing a job at Dick’s Collision at 13 Delisle Street in River Rouge. At 20 years old, Miller took over the shop and changed the name to Styline Customs in 1963. Though he mostly made his living bumping out dents and fixing fenders, he was soon turning out eye-catching creations of his own. In 1968, he won the prestigious Ridler Award for his first important creation, The Fire Truck. A decade of custom designs followed, with Miller winning awards and turning heads at car shows across the country.
Miller eventually passed the Styline torch to new owners, but he still has the custom car bug, forging new creations and celebrating the mark he has left on the outer limits of automotive design.
Chuck Miller’s Greatest Kits
Bugs Buggy, The Crater Raider, The Sonic Cuda, and The Woodburner were just a few of the wild and wooly car designs that Chuck Miller created in the 1960s and 1970s. But it was these three late-1960s creations that cemented his reputation as one of the most creative hot-rod guys on the scene:
The Fire Truck Engine Co. No. 13
Typical of the way Miller often coaxed childhood fantasies into gearhead grandeur was this 1968 creation. Built around a Ford Cobra 289 engine, it was imbued with Miller’s gonzo whimsy, including a monocle windshield, tiller steering, barrel-style headlamps, and a gas tank that resembled a fire extinguisher. These quaint touches were set off with Detroit muscle, including a strictly-for-show engine blower and heavy mag wheels. After causing a sensation at Autorama in 1968, the car was carefully measured by Mount Clemens-based model-maker MPC, which issued the kit with a portrait of Miller on the box.
Photo Credit: Image from the internet; the MPC model kit version of Miller's Engine Co. 13 Fire Truck created in 1968
The Red Baron Roadster
This car actually began as a model kit, designed by Tom Daniel with two mounted machine guns and a cockpit shaped like a WWI German helmet. Miller was approached to make a life-sized version, with a tube steel frame, transverse leaf spring rear suspension and a Ford Econoline steering box. For the helmet, Miller used plywood and modeling clay to make a full-size fiberglass mold. Not long after it won the Sweepstakes Award at the 1969 Oakland Roadster Show in California, Hot Wheels would reproduce the car as a popular die-cast toy, bringing the interplay between big-block cars and childhood toys full circle.
Photo Credit: shown here at its home at the Speedway Motors Museum of American Speed in Lincoln Nebraska
The Zingers!
Autorama promoter Bob Larivee recruited Miller to make a full-scale version of Zingers!, stock cars and trucks bulging with outsized horsepower. They began in 1969 when model car company MPC sponsored a contest for innovative model cars, with one young builder entering a particularly wacky creation: a 1:43 scale body with larger-scale engine shoehorned into it. This led to Miller’s insanely ramped-up version of a Volkswagen Beetle, a Corvette, a Dodge van, and a semi rig. The vehicles were staples of the custom car show circuit for decades and were selected as highlighted showpieces of Detroit's Autorama 2021 (which ended up cancelled due to the pandemic).
Photo Credit: Image from the internet, Cover of Hot Rodding Magazine of November 1971
“The Mobile Masterpieces Exhibition” at the Lincoln Park Museum is a tribute to a home towner of International acclaim who is a recognized master of automotive customization from the hammered and torched metal work to the kandy, pearlescent and metal flake finishes of these truly unique show cars.
"This is my home; I'm not going anywhere." To this day, Miller remains true to his word, now residing a tad further Downriver in rural New Boston, Michigan.
Photos from the Historical Museum’s Chuck Miller exhibit
Exhibit Opening RECEPTION: August 14, 12:00–4:00 pm
Exhibit Duration: August 14 to September 18, 2021
EXHIBIT CLOSING RECEPTION: SEPTEMBER 18, 12:00–3:00 PM
Photos from the Opening Event held August 14 2021
