When families move out of town, of course they take all their members with them. But when your family member is 18-feet tall and stiff as a board, it’s not so easy to load him in the back of the station wagon. In instances like that, your adopted kin might be bundled off to a farm, where he has plenty of room to roam.
Such is the case with a roadside giant known as Stan the Tire Man, who was once located at GCR Tire Center in Birmingham. Stan is Alabama’s only known Muffler Man – and they’re pretty difficult to hide.
For decades, since at least the 1960s, Stan stood as an advertisement for tires. According to Scooter Bill on the site Waymarking.com, Stan at one time had a tire hanging from each arm. He began his career in a blue shirt but it was painted white in recent years.
Stan the Muffler Man was a landmark in downtown Birmingham for more than six decades. (Joel Baker | American Giants)
His original home was outside Lynn Strickland Sales & Services. In the 1970s, the shop was located at the corner of Second Avenue S. and 21st Street, according to BhamWiki.com. In 1980, it moved to 100 12th Street S.
The shop was sold to GCR Tire Center in 1994. Stan was located on the roof of the building at that time. In 1998, the giant suffered a devastating accident when he was cut in half by high winds. Jerry Griffies, who repaired Stan, said he painted his shirt white to match the GCR uniforms.
In 2004, the business and Stan moved to 3340 Vanderbilt Road. Then Southern Tire Mart bought the business. Stan was put out to pasture in 2021, according to Southern Tire manager Connor Rhine.
“He was taken to the old manager’s farm near Selma,” Rhine said. He thinks the plan is to erect Stan at the farm, which is private property.
Stan the Muffler Man was originally erected at Lynn Strickland Sales & Service in Birmingham. He is shown here in 1980. (John Margolies | Library of Congress)
Birth of the Muffler Man
You’ve likely seen a Muffler Man, or one of his oversized relations, which include Vikings, Cowboys, American Indians, Paul Bunyans and Miss Uniroyal figures. For years, a pioneer man – an advertisement for Wagon Ho restaurants – could be seen in Moody, Ala., but he was moved in 2018 to an industrial park in Hayward, Calif.
Read more: The story of Muffler Men and other roadside giants
At least 60 figures made by the manufacturer of Muffler Men survive across the South. Some are being saved and restored by a fiberglass artists, such as Mark Cline of Natural Bridge, Va., and the team at American Giants, based in Illinois.
Bob Prewitt is credited with creating a mold for a Paul Bunyan statue circa-1960 that would eventually lead to the creation of the Muffler Man, so named because in some of his early iterations he held a muffler to promote auto repair shops.
This Muffler Man was custom made a few years ago for Mike Whitman, a plumber in Dallas, Ga. Whitman has displayed several other giants around Dallas, including a Uniroyal Gal. (Kelly Kazek)
In 1963, Steve Dashew, owner of International Fiberglass, bought Bob’s business, Prewitt Fiberglass Animals, along with all his molds, according to RoadsideAmerica.com.
Dashew’s company began turning out various oversized fiberglass figures and promoted them to business owners – particularly of gas stations and tire shops – as a way to draw customers.
Before long, International Fiberglass was creating the “Big Friend” for Texaco, which were giant men in Texaco service uniforms; cowboys for the Phillips Oil company; Miss Uniroyals for the tire company; Yogi Bears for A&W restaurants and more.
A Uniroyal Gal is part of Mike Whitman’s collection of fiberglass giants in Dallas, Ga. (Kelly Kazek)
Dashew sold International Fiberglass in 1974 and all the original molds were destroyed in 1976, he said. No more figures have been made from the original designs since then. Roadside Architecture claims that worldwide “less than 200 of these statues are still around today.”
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