It’s funny how certain people are where they need to be at the exact right time in history to match their innovative ideas with the technology of the day. Often we hear about failed ideas that were “ahead of their time.” Virtually everything Harry Miller did during his life was ahead of its time, but his brilliance allowed for it to be applied with stunning success.

We’ll pick up his story in the early 1900s with Miller designing and building a new and improved type carburetor for normal, road-going cars. This carb worked so well it was adapted for use on race cars of the day and quickly became a necessary piece for any racer looking to stay with the pack.

By 1913 he had already sold one company and started another, again focusing on carburetors. This company, called the Master Carburetor Company, enjoyed the same type of rocket success his first venture did. Soon, Master equipped cars were winning everything in sight on the West Coast and word spread East that Miller’s stuff was the hot dope.

Also in 1913, Miller had been developing a special metal alloy to be use in building his pieces. He called his special metal Alloyanum. So he wasn’t the most creative linguist. A side benefit to this metal was its adaptation for use in making pistons. Its light weight and ability to withstand high temps also made it a perfect metal to build pistons from, and he did, in spades.

In the several following years, Miller concentrated on designing and building engines. They were all innovative and incorporated design elements only found on high-end European racing cars of the era. His engines were contenders from the start.

The first full race car he built was Barney Oldfield’s famous Golden Submarine. It was a closed car with an odd shaped body that was said to be designed for maximum efficiency. It would be fun to get it into a wind tunnel and see just how slippery it is.

In 1920 Miller went into the race car building business full steam, designing and building the cars that would dominate the American racing scene of the day. These were scratch-built cars that required enormous amounts of time to be competed. Word is that it took about 6,500 man work hours to build one from start to finish. Especially if you wanted to make them look nice like Miller did.

1924 saw Miller design and build an incredible front-wheel-drive race car that drivers loved and used to dominate the race tracks of America and abroad.  The front-drive layout afforded the car a lower center of gravity, and visually presented the look of a very long hood, a look that would dominate automotive design aesthetics for a long time thereafter.

It got to the point that if you honestly wanted to field a competitive race car, it needed to be a Miller through and through. His stuff was not cheap, either, especially in 1920s money. $10,000 got you a rear-drive chassis and $15,000 got you a front driver. During this time the starting grid of the Indy 500 consisted to 70-80 percent Millers.

The early 1930s were not a good time for Miller. He was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1933. In the process of that bankruptcy he sold off the rights to this little 220ci mongrel four-cylinder. A guy named Offenhauser bought it (who incidentally was the chief machinist for Miller). It was the Offenhauser racing engine, one of the greatest mills of all time and Miller wanted it to be gone as quickly as possible. Offenhauser of course refined the engine and it became one of the greatest American engines ever built.

Miller was friends with Preston Tucker and actually had a hand in designing that ill-fated car. He worked for Tucker in 1939 and 1940 as the Chief Engineer on the project. It has been reported that he received no pay for that work.

Harry Miller is a guy who people have literally written books on, so we hope you enjoyed this quick look at his life and times. He is a Gearhead Guy You Should Know because he not only designed and built whole race cars, he designed some incredible engines and singly handedly drove early race car design