Tag Archives: muffler men

Big brothers

This post is part of an ongoing series called 66 Fridays, which explores the wonders of old Route 66. Click on the preceding “66 Fridays” link to view all posts in the series, or visit the initial overview post here.

International Fiberglass’s midcentury giants are scattered around the country, and the Muffer Man diaspora certainly includes Route 66, as well. But the fiberglass beefcakes along Illinois’s diagonal streth of Route 66 an extra-special breed. These men are called simply the “Brothers,” and most of them have unusual variants of the standard Muffler Man “physique.”

First up is this rather bizarre guy, currently located in Atlanta, IL. It seems a little random that he’s holding a hot dog rather than the standard muffler (though in my experience, Muffler Men almost never hold actual mufflers these days), but his origin story makes everything clear. You see, this guy, named “Tall Paul,” originally stood outside Bunyon’s* hot dog stand in the Chicago suburb of Cicero. When he was originally commissioned in 1966, the owner of Bunyon’s had him outfitted with a custom fiberglass frank instead of a muffler. After Bunyon’s closed its doors in 2002, Tall Paul was sent “downstream” along Route 66 to the town of Atlanta, where he’s housed on long-term loan. While he looks handsome here in Atlanta, I still wish I could see him in situ in Cicero, amidst his Chicago-dog brethren.

* Bunyon’s, as in Paul Bunyan, except it was purposefully misspelled to avoid any possible trademark infringement.

Next are the fraternal fiberglass twins of the capital city of Springfield. The guy on the left, who admittedly is not right on Route 66 (but not far off of it), is a former Carpet Viking in new garb. And on the right, just a block or two off of the Mother Road, is the Lauterbach Tire Man, now newly re-capitated after a 2006 tornado quite literally blew his head off.

And then there’s the mutant masterpiece of Illinois 66, a particularly odd and endangered specimen known as the Gemini Giant.

This guy stands sentry outside the now-defunct Launcing Pad Drive-in in the town of Wilmington. When he was commissioned in 1965, the owners of the Launching Pad capitalized on the Space Race fad of the era, and customized their guy with an astronaut helmet and handheld rocket. Even his name, devised by a local schoolgirl, referenced the Gemini space program. The result is not only one of the most unusual muffler men, but also one of the most recognized Route 66 landmarks.

The empty Launching Pad property and the Gemini Giant are both currently for sale—they went up for auction just this April, but failed to meet the reserve price. Despite an uncertain future, the town of Wilmington appears to be committed to preserving the Gemini Giant. I certainly hope so—if any of the Brothers were to disappear from Route 66, they’d leave some awfully big shoes to fill.

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Slapshot statue

San Jose’s Muffler Man might not be the most unusual fiberglass specimen out there, but he’ll always have a place in my heart for combining my favorite type of roadside attraction with my favorite sport. Heck, the Muffler Man’s standard pose is perfect form for holding a hockey stick: top hand pointing down, bottom hand pointing up. If that’s not a sign this guy is just my type, I don’t know what is. Now if only I could find a Paul Bunyan goalie somewhere…

Fiberglass fräulein

As I’ve already written before, one of my ongoing road trip checklists includes the various Muffler Men scattered around the country. But one thing I hadn’t yet been able to add to the list is the Muffler Man’s sister, the Uniroyal Gal. Another early-1960s creation of the International Fiberglass Company in California, rumor has it that her likeness was inspired by Jacqueline Kennedy.

The Uniroyal Gal was also a national phenomenon, albeit a much rarer one. So that meant that finding one was a sort of quest. And I finally nabbed my first one in El Paso, of all places. This gal was waaaay off the beaten path and really hard to find, but her pristine condition made her well worth the journey. And best of all, I could really see the resemblance to Jackie—I could almost imagine a pillbox hat atop that fiberglass Bouvier bouffant…

Lumberjacks of 66

Since Route 66 passes through the Great Plains and the Desert Southwest, and not at all through the North Woods, it’s not a highway that brings thoughts of Paul Bunyan to mind. Yet there are a handful of Pauls along the Mother Road, if you know where to look.

The most well-known can be found in Flagstaff (where logging actually does happen): a trio (including a set of identical-twin Muffler Men) of big brothers in matching outfits. The guy on the left of the above sketch is hand-hewn out of wood, fittingly, but to me the most interesting specimen is the one on the right half of that spread. That Muffler Man happens to be, rumor has it, the very first one ever rolled off the assembly line. Today the aforementioned wooden statue stands in his place on Route 66, and the Muffler Man now stands near his twin on the Northern Arizona University campus.

The other Paul Bunyan is an oddity, indeed. He stands high above Central Avenue (the more modern alignment of 66) in Albuquerque, keeping watch beside what is now a Vietnamese Cafe. Sadly, this Paul has recently been rendered limbless…but it’s not like he needed to do a lot of logging in Albuquerque anyway.

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A landmark day

It’s hard to imagine that much time has passed already, but today this blog turns two years old. (Last year’s anniversary post is here.) In the past 24 months you’ve crisscrossed the continent with me, pinballing back and forth from place to place, landmark to landmark. So I figured there was no better way to mark the occasion than with two icons of both Americana and road trip culture, all rolled into one figure: a Muffler Man in the guise of Paul Bunyan.

Here’s to the next year, and the next bend in the road. May there always be Muffler Men there to guide my path, and more American legends to share and sketch. Thank you to everyone who reads and every fellow traveler, in this virtual world and in the real one.

Kings of the road

Well, if I’m going to spend all this time talking about roadside attractions, I would be remiss if I didn’t include the legendary Muffler Men—guardians of gas stations, presidents of photo ops. If you’ve ever taken a road trip, you’ve probably seen at least one of these guys along the way.

These behemoths started appearing in the early 1960s (the very first one was on Route 66), to promote the brand new International Fiberglass Company in California. For whatever reason, they usually ended up in front of gas stations, holding giant mufflers—hence the nickname.

By 1970 there were thousands of them around the country, but the 1973 oil crisis forced the decline and eventual demise of International Fiberglass. These days the muffler men are an endangered species, down to just a few hundred stalwart lads (and a handful of lasses, too!).

For me, finding them has turned into something of a quest—and not just because I’m a completist (though, of course I am). You see, the most fun thing about these guys is that they’re not identical—there are many, many variations on the original design (and a few knock-offs, to boot).

Probably the most common variation is the Paul Bunyan—they’re certainly the most recognizable, even when their axes get stolen.

And when they’re spiffed up to their original glory, they’re unmistakeable. (This one is a mobile muffler man! When he surprised me at the local Daffodil Parade a few years ago, it felt like Christmas had come early.)

Though I’ll never pass up any iteration of Paul Bunyan, I’m most excited about the rare, extreme variants, the roadside sideshow—the Uniroyal Gals, the Happy Halfwits, the Carpet Vikings.

And best of all are the mutant modifications that have happened to some of these guys (you should have heard me squeal when I found this one!). Some have been altered so much as to be rendered almost unrecognizable. But you can’t fool me—once a muffler man, always a muffler man.

So tell me: have you found any muffler men in your travels? Do you have one in your neighborhood? I’m always on the look-out for a good one, so if you have any recommendations, I’m all (rabbit) ears.

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