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The name Harry A. Miller is one to conjure with for racing
historians. Harry was a brilliant, self-taught designer; first of
carburetors, then racing engines, racing cars and, finally a
plethora of mechanical contrivances from speedboats to
autogiro engines.
His racing cars defined the roaring twenties of fast and
elegant cars - and women. It was a time when tiny but beautiful
cars attracted Hollywood stars to the board tracks that
bloomed in brilliant array, before falling, as did the nation's
economy, to over-extended speculation.
The skyrocket that was the Miller era truly gave a lovely
light while it lasted. The little supercharged front-drive
Miller 91s were jewels unlike anything seen before, or afterwards,
on America's race tracks. For fit, polish and speed,
there was not, nor ever will be, their match.
But how did Harry reach the pinnacle of American racing?
Perhaps a clue to the secret of his achievement is
shown by his fall. When Miller went into bankruptcy in
1933 he lost his talented crew, the men who had shaped the
creations of his busy mind into steel and aluminum. From
then, until his death ten years later, his creations were
unsuccessful, his ideas still-born. This shows just how much
Harry Miller had relied on his team of craftsmen, especially
his head machinist Fred Offenhauser, and one careful engineer,
Leo Goossen, to build what his imagination wrought.
Miller learned the foundry art in the lumber town of
Menomonie, Wisconsin and there created a motorcycle and
an outboard boat engine by the time he was 25. As a
mechanic he prepared and rode Oldsmobile's 1906 entry
in the Vanderbilt Cup races. They were doing well until
the driver, Ernie Keeler, ran the car into a utility pole. In
1907 Miller, age 33, opened his first shop in Los Angeles
and began to design carburetors and fuel pumps for the
automotive trade.
Miller quickly attracted the first of what would become
a team of skilled and creative workers capable of turning
his ideas into reality. According to Miller respected historian
Mark L. Dees, Miller and his wife Nezzie had taken into
their home one of his employees, 22 year old Frank Milton
Adamson. Miller and Adamson produced several carburetor
models that were patented under both their names. In 1911
Miller and Adamson spent some months in Indianapolis
helping two businessmen, to whom Harry had sold the manufacturing
rights, set up shop to produce the "New Miller"
model carburetor.
In 1912, Miller credited Adamson as a co-inventor of a
new "Master" carburetor when it was submitted for patent.
Adamson celebrated by marrying Hazel West, with whom
he would have two sons. In 1916 Miller and Adamson
applied for a patent on an improved "Miller" carburetor
which would become standard on later Miller engines.
During World War One, Adamson registered for the draft
listing himself as a carburetor engineer with the Harry A.
Miller Manufacturing Co. at 219 E. Washington Street in
Los Angeles. Two years later he described himself as "manager,
carburetor shop." As the twenties progressed, carburetors
became a less important part of Miller's business and
Adamson gradually shifted into more general engine work.
Miller sold his business to Schofield in February, 1929.
The Crash on Wall Street, eight months later, brought
Schofield down with it. So Miller was back in business
on his own by April 1930 and Adamson returned to
work for Harry, describing himself as an "automotive
development engineer."
Another star in Miller's firmament was a machinist from
the Los Angeles railroad shops, Fred Offenhauser.
Machinery had mesmerized Fred since he was twelve when,
after school, he would stare through the fence at the equipment
in motion at the Llewelyn Iron Works on East
Redondo Avenue. He quit school in 1903 and went to work
as an apprentice at the Pacific Electric Railway shops at
East Sixth and Central. In those days there was no better
training for a machinist than the railroad shops. Railroad
machinists were considered among the best in the trade and
Offenhauser became one of the true elite, a toolmaker.
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