Muffler Men – Fiberglass roadside giants once built to sell cars are multiplying again across the Route 66 corridor, from a 23-foot Gemini Giant in Illinois to the original Louie in Flagstaff and Chicken Boy’s revival in Los Angeles. Tracking has pushed the total above 250
Snow was flying sideways the first time the route-tripper in me really focused on what I’d come for: a 25-foot lumberjack made of fiberglass. its red hat and ax held high like it had never heard of bad weather.. On the Northern Arizona University campus in Flagstaff. it felt almost too easy—like stumbling into the original Muffler Man before the rest of the story could catch up.
These roadside giants. also known as Paul Bunyans. Uniroyal Gals. and most commonly Muffler Men. were manufactured in Los Angeles and first appeared on highways of North America in the early 1960s as advertising gimmicks. often promoting car lots or car parts.. This year. their presence is especially noticeable along Route 66 as it marks its 100th year. with a “pre-centennial frenzy” tracked through a map maintained online that coined the term “Muffler Men.”
Nobody’s certain how many were made during the golden age. but the count has climbed above 250 since 2020. including “a few dozen” rediscoveries since 2010. according to Doug Kirby. co-founder and publisher of the site that tracks them.. In addition to the rising numbers, more than a dozen giants are currently in transition—getting reconditioned or relocated.
The resurgence shows up in characters and details that can feel wildly personal for people who have been watching roadside advertising age in real time.. Amy Inouye. the designer and artist who rescued L.A.’s most iconic Muffler Man. Chicken Boy. describes them as “instant friends. ” saying they’re “really tall” and “just want to be accepted for who they are.” Inouye’s Chicken Boy sits atop her gallery in Highland Park. where the statue still draws attention block to block.
On a westbound trip from Chicago on Route 66, the Muffler Men appeared quickly.. In Berwyn. Ill.. on Ogden Avenue. a Cigars & Stripes Muffler Man stands on the roof of Cigars & Stripes BBQ Lounge. brandishing a chicken wing and a fridge-size bottle of barbecue sauce while chewing on a stogie.. In Wilmington, Ill., the Gemini Giant rises 23 feet above a tiny park.. Made for a Wilmington diner in 1965. he was auctioned for $275. 000 in early 2024 and placed in his current location later that year. wearing a clunky silver space helmet and holding a rocket.
The figures are built in a way that helps explain why so many different versions exist.. Conceived around 1962 by a Lawndale entrepreneur named Bob Prewitt. Muffler Men were made popular from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s by a company in Venice called International Fiberglass.. Made from a standard set of molds and held together by steel frames. most Muffler Men are assembled from three or four pieces.. In addition to those holding mufflers and tires. some were outfitted as cowboys. Indians. lumberjacks (often known as Paul Bunyans). astronauts. chefs. dentists. golfers. hot dog vendors. race-car drivers. pirates. and service-station attendants.. The jug-eared goofball characters—depending on which scholar is asked—are described as halfwits or called snerds.. Interest also brought female giants. including Uniroyal Gals and Rosie the Riveters. along with oversized animals such as dinosaurs. bulls. roosters. hens. and seals.
A quieter rebuilding started in the late decades.. After interest faded in the 1970s. seeds of a new era were sown around 1989 when Kirby. Mike Wilkins. and Ken Smith—who had worked together on the 1985 book “Roadside America”—were building a database for a follow-up project and recognized a repeating pattern of “this configuration of statue we’re seeing in a lot of places.” They decided they needed to start keeping track.. The first few they saw were holding mufflers.. Kirby chose the name Muffler Men. blending the old nursery rhyme “Muffin Man” and a Frank Zappa song of the same name.
When the Roadside America website launched in 1996, Muffler Men were part of it.. By 2000. Roadside America had uncovered their origin story and interviewed Steve Dashew. former president of International Fiberglass. and readers embraced the giants widely.. “It was like a religious epiphany for some people,” Kirby said.. “For years. they were driving past these things.” He added that once people realized the figures were part of an uncharted network across the country. “it’s like your third eye has been opened.”
Ken Bernstein, principal city planner for Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources, calls Muffler Men “monumental and distinctive representations of midcentury car culture,” especially along auto-centric corridors where it was important to catch the eye of passing motorists.
New custom jobs are being manufactured now. and the growing interest has helped form an economic community around restoration. replication. sales. transport. and display.. That community includes companies like (Re)Giant and sculptor Mark Cline’s Enchanted Castle Studios.. At the same time. many Southern California mechanics still weld together mufflers to make human figures. and those creations are often called Muffler Men too—adding another layer to the name’s meaning and to what visitors might think they’re seeing.
The American Giants Museum in Atlanta. Ill.. created in 2024 by Bill Thomas of the Atlanta Betterment Fund and collector-historian Joel Baker. is devoted to the fiberglass figures.. The museum is open April through October. includes four standing Muffler Men. and is expected to add two more around Memorial Day.
Because the giants stand in the open air, visitors who show up after hours can still look at them. Lee Woods, 55, who started collecting about five years ago and owns the museum, says he loves “history” and “anything to do with cars and old advertisements,” because it “takes people back.”
Woods and his wife. Diane. who have a fleet of tow trucks in Hot Springs. Ark.. were collecting old porcelain gas station signs. gas pumps. and old cars in 2021 when they saw the Gemini Giant while driving through Illinois.. Woods said he told his wife he would want one to represent their tow company.. Before long, they hired someone to build a custom tow-truck-operator Muffler Man.. Then Woods bought a Paul Bunyan in Oklahoma, and in 2023 he obtained a Muffler Man Mr.. Spock from Rainbow Neon in Salt Lake City.. Now Woods has eight Muffler Men in Arkansas.
“Sometimes I get carried away, my wife says,” Woods said.
Woods bought the museum last fall and collaborates with Baker. who is founder of the American Giants website. creator of a Giants YouTube series. and serves as a Muffler Man broker. consultant. and transportation specialist.. Woods said when people see the figures. they think they’re “the coolest thing out there. ” adding that in his time at the museum. people from six different countries have visited.
The pattern across the trip kept accelerating: one in Galena, Kan.; one in Vinita, Okla.. (which has since added a third); five in Tulsa’s Meadow Gold District (including one with an 8-foot-long guitar); then in Weatherford. Okla.. a 30-foot astronaut; in Amarillo. a “2nd Amendment Cowboy” with a pair of big pistols at his feet; and in Gallup. N.M.. a giant on the roof of a used car lot.. By the time the traveler reached Flagstaff, the count was 18.
Then came Louie—the original Muffler Man in Flagstaff—nicknamed Louie.. Experts agree he was produced in about 1963 and sent to a Flagstaff cafe with a lumberjack theme. and that cafe stood along Route 66.. Louie stood there until the cafe closed more than 10 years later.. Afterward. he was donated to NAU and stationed by the ticket office of the university’s Walkup Skydome. with another lumberjack inside as well.
A drought followed.. After Louie, there were no more giant sightings in Arizona and none along the Route 66 alignment followed into Southern California.. That contradiction didn’t sit right because Southern California is the land of their birth and because there are known examples there. including Big Josh. who looks down upon Joshua Tree from the Station gift shop on State Route 62; the Paul Bunyan in Mentone; the empty-handed Muffler Man known as Kevin on Sherman Way in Van Nuys; the flag-wielding Porsche Muffler Man in Carson (who previously served in the same spot as a club-brandishing Golf Man); and plenty of others.
It didn’t end without a final stop.. In Highland Park, the traveler went to 5558 N.. Figueroa St., a longtime Route 66 path in the 1930s and the home of Chicken Boy.. Blessed with a customized chicken head. the body of a Muffler Man. and a bucket in his hands. Chicken Boy stood for years atop the Chicken Boy fried-chicken restaurant on Broadway downtown.. The statue drew enough attention that writer Art Fein labeled him “L.A.’s Statue of Liberty.”
After the restaurant was shuttered in 1984, Inouye rescued Chicken Boy and placed him in protective storage—for years.. In October 2007. after Inouye and longtime partner Stuart Rapeport bought the Highland Park studio space and pulled permits. she put Chicken Boy back together again and set him up on the roof.. Chicken Boy remains there, sharing space with a billboard, visible up and down the block between Avenue 55 and Avenue 56.
A nomination by L.A.. preservationist Charles J.. Fisher goes through the process, Chicken Boy could become the first Muffler Man declared a city historic-cultural monument.. Inouye, now 74, is often at the Future Studio Gallery on a Saturday between noon and 3 p.m.. or 4 p.m., with a trove of Chicken Boy T-shirts, patches, pencils, and ceramic treasure boxes.. After seeing so many fiberglass cousins. Chicken Boy was the last sight needed—after a balmy afternoon. his beak gleaming in the sun. the mission felt complete.
The sequence of rediscoveries. ongoing transitions. and new custom manufacturing follows a single roadmap: the Route 66 centennial is pulling attention as the tracked totals climb above 250 since 2020. while more than a dozen figures are in transition and new giants are being steadily made to replace and expand what’s been saved.
Route 66 Muffler Men fiberglass statues road trip roadside attractions Americana preservation Chicken Boy Flagstaff Gemini Giant