harry miller

Harry Miller was an American race car designer and builder who was most active in the 1920s and 1930s. In the opinion of noted American racing historian Griffith Borgeson, he was "the greatest creative figure in the history of the American racing car".

"His engines dominated American oval-track racing for almost half acentury. Most of the speed records which there were to be had on land and water were held at one time or another by those engines. He created the school of American thoroughbred engine design, which was faithfullyfollowed by those who sought to out do him. He was the originator, in the United States, of the racing car as an art object. He had a passion for metalwork and machinery that soared above and beyond all practical consideration. Parts of his machines that never would be seen by eyes other than those of the builders were formed and finished with loving care. His dedication to artistic and noble workmanship drew to his organization other technicians who believed in these same values. Awhole sub-culture spread from the Miller nucleus, to become a permanentand integral part of innovative, artistic Southern California culture as a whole. It spilled over into the aircraft industry and it shook the automotive industry worldwide. 

Miller created the first really streamlined closed car in the United States, and one of the first in the world. That was in 1917, and he was already telling journalists about using airfoil sections for improvingthe traction of super-light cars. He created unsupercharged engines offantastic efficiency. Then he became the master of supercharging, achieving far more fantastic results, making the world passenger-car industry look archaic. He gave the world front-wheel-drive as apractical reality. He created really tractable and practical four-wheeldrive racing cars in the early Thirties, decades before almost anyonecould appreciate the value of the principle. He always lived in thefuture, up to the time of his death in 1943.” – Mark Dees

Miller and Offenhauser won the Indy 500 fifteen times in the twenty-year period from 1921 to 1941 (Miller first raced at Indy in 1921; there were no races at Indy from 1942-1945).

He was shy, silent, and reflective. He had little to say, unless the topic should be machinery or, preferably, engines, in which case he could go on forever, with an interlocutor on his intellectual wavelength.