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Old 31 Aug 2001, 23:46 (Ref:139357)   #1
Ray Bell
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American Mille Miglia entry 1957

Delving into my little collection of Motor Racing I found a "Coche" World Report that discusses an American entry in the Mille Miglia by Akton (should this be Akron?) Miller... after discussing his 5th-placed hotrod from the 1953 Carrera Panamerica it describes the car called the Caballo de Hierro Mk 2 (Iron Horse Mk 2).

Graduating from the T-model chassis and Olds engine of the earlier car, it had a chassis 'the same as Bill Murphy's Kurtis Buick well reinforced to take a hammering from Italian roads', power-assisted brakes from Chrysler and Lincoln, an aluminium body by Jack Sutton of Hollywood that 'closely followed Italian lines' and a 6.4 litre Chrysler with Hilborn injection giving about 400hp at 5400 rpm, estimated maximum speed of 180mph...

Are there pictures about? Did it in fact run, in which case how did it go? I have read the report and I'm sure it isn't mentioned...
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Old 1 Sep 2001, 22:28 (Ref:139841)   #2
Felix Muelas
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Caballo de Hierro - Chrysler II

Did it in fact run, in which case how did it go?

Dear Ray

According to Janos Wimpffen´s "Time and Two Seats" (p. 237) there appear, as DNF car 524, Caballo de Hierro - Chrysler II (cat Sports Cars +2000) Akton Miller / Douglas Harrison. Reason for DNF : brakes

As how far did they go, they are the fourth retirement of the race (the first one being Moss/Jenks). Time is not recorded, but must have been quite early.

And then some words : "Ak Miller had raced a home built hot rod in the Carrera Panamericana. He returned to open road racing with the Caballo II, a large Chrysler engined car built on a Kurtis chassis. It was much more refined than his earlier creation, this one looking like a cross between a Cunningham and a Mercedes 300SLR. However, it was not suited to the Italian roads and retired in the early going".

No pictures, though.

Un abrazo

Felix
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Old 1 Sep 2001, 23:35 (Ref:139894)   #3
Roger Clark
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THese pictures are from Autosport. The second shows the car leaving Ravenna. The report does not say where they retired, but implies they got further than does "Time and 2 Seats". They mention the car arriving at Rimini. However, reporting of the Mille Miglia was rather more difficult than most races, so this may not neccessarily be so.
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Old 1 Sep 2001, 23:45 (Ref:139902)   #4
Felix Muelas
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Roger,

An impecable job, as always
Curious looking car!
Thanks

Felix
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Old 2 Sep 2001, 03:59 (Ref:139977)   #5
Milan Fistonic
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This from the Road & Track report.

Ak Miller was unfortunately plagued by some troubles, notably one of his drum brakes broke, and he had to retire at Ravenna.
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Old 5 Sep 2001, 19:42 (Ref:142034)   #6
alessandrosilva
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I'd love to check if a boyhood memory of mine is correct. We used to listen the early development of the MM on the radio. TV, after 1955, would pick up the race in Rome. Early in the morning I seem to remember to have listened to something like: "and sixth is the American Miller.." Was he really so high in the placement somewhere early in the race?
I remember also that Auto Italiana published the picture of the car and drivers with the lady handing the helmet. My Auto Italiana collection is unfortunately lost.
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Old 6 Sep 2001, 03:16 (Ref:142236)   #7
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A big V8, a brave driver and the relatively fast roads of the opening stretches (IIRC) could well have meant a high placing in the early stages...

Thanks for the pics, Roger, and the other info, everyone else...

Does it really seem logical he 'broke' a brake drum? I know this used to happen periodically with Ford drums as fitted to 1940-46 models, but I wouldn't have thought this likely of a mid-fifties product with that knowledge behind the Ford engineers?

I'm fairly sure the drums were Lincoln... I'm 1200km from my magazines at the moment, but I think that's what I read.
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Old 6 Sep 2001, 11:21 (Ref:142386)   #8
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Ray: as Lincoln was Ford's luxury car division, surely Lincoln brake drums would have been Ford and vice versa?:confused:
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Old 6 Sep 2001, 18:25 (Ref:142587)   #9
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I can't answer Alessandro's query about Miller reaching sixth place. However, autosport does mention the car several times and the context suggests it was well placed.

this is from Denis Jenkinson's book "Porsche Past and Present"

In 1957 I met up with a bunch of Californian "hot rodders", all memebers of the original Californian Road Runners who came to Europe to take part in the Mille Miglia with a Chrysler V8-powered hot-rod built by Akton Miller, an arch-priest of "tune2 in Los Angeles. Jesse Alexander was their link-man in Europe so natuarlly we all spent a lot of time together. "Uncle Ak" as he was called, had Doug Harrison as his passenger and Peter Coltrin as his general go-fer and helper. Pete had not long left the US Army and was known as the "Lootenant". Apart from his intereset in the trip, he contributed the tow-car for the outfit, or to be more precise, his mother did. this was an Oldsmobile Coupe to which a tow-bar had been added, and Ak had lifted out mother's standard V8 engine and dropped in one of his own rather special V8 units, basically an ldsmobile, but with variooous go-faster goodied on it. The Chrysler-powered sports car was on a trailer behind Mrs Coltrin's coupe and Jesse and I did not take much notice of te entourage, oter than their entry in the Mille Miglia. Unfortunately, Ak and doug did not get very far in the raceas they had brake trouble, but they stayed on in europe after the event and Pete stayed with them. Apart from visiting varioous places, they also went to some european GrandPrix races and eventually we met met up at at Jesse's house at Hhfluh, which Ak insisted on calling "Hohflush2 adding afterwards "on the Rhine2 as he was sure that the river Rhine covered the whole of Europe.

Their return trip was from Cherbourg and since Jesse and I were heading for a race t rouen at the time of departure, we arranged to travel in convoy and show them the way. Condescendingly, Jesse and I agreed that we were not in a hurry and we did not minf the Oldsmobile and trailer keeping station behind us.

My first inkling of embarassment was after breakfast when Ak went out to start up the Oldsmobile and warm it up, for I had not even looked at it at that point. It had the smoothest and sweetest running V8 engine I had ever heard. I had bbecome used to American V8 engines in things like Allards and Cunninghams, but this was something else and Ak was very proud of it, for it was a typical Miller prepared overhead-valve V8. That journey to Rouen was a terrible embarassment to Jesse and me, for on the long straights across France that great bulbous Oldsmobile coupe with the trailer and racing car on the bak sat behind us no matter what we did. We both rowed our little Porsches along as hard as we couls, cruisiing continually at 85mph and the Miller entourage just sat there in our mirrors. Wha was worse, Ak, Doug and Pete were sitting abreat on the bench seat smoking cigars, while Ak drove with one hand on the wheel and his elbow on the window ledge in typical USA style. Meantime, both Jesse and I were driving our Porsches as if we were competing in a race. When we stopped, Ak removed his cigar and asked, "Your little cars OK?" That Oldsmobile coupe had been timed at Bonneville at something like 141mph using one of "uncle Ak's" special V8 engines, but I don't think Pete's mother knew about that.
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Old 17 Sep 2001, 21:41 (Ref:147625)   #10
Ray Bell
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Quote:
Originally posted by Vitesse
Ray: as Lincoln was Ford's luxury car division, surely Lincoln brake drums would have been Ford and vice versa?:confused:
My point related more to the progress in technology within the Ford Motor Company. Undoubtedly the drums used would have been from much later models, probably 1955 or 1956 models.

A fantastic snippet from Jenks, by the way, Roger... and what of this one, from the Motor Racing report, in the long and colourful prelude to the race proper, with Modena as the setting, and much pre-race testing going on:

Behra took off for Brescia with Scarlatti at 12pm and returned ten minutes later with a frightened Scarlatti who had already had enough. Everyone was waiting for Ak Miller to pass with the Chrysler Kurtis "Caballo de Hierro II" but he appeared to be busy staking out the sites for his cine camera teams. Moss left for two days' rest and Portago took in one more lap when he found that he would be driving a sports instead of a Gran Turismo car. The afternoon before the race a big depression descended upon Maserati - Jean Behra has crashed with the 4.5 and was in hospital, the Maserati had been destroyed and Jean had stayed with the car only long enough to collect his money, cigarette lighter and plastic ear before thumbing a lift from a shaken Fiat Topolino driver to the hospital at Modena.

This report is fantastic for this kind of detail, but almost totally devoid of actual commentary on the race itself... but it does include this gory bit about the finish:

On the straight, at about 180mph, a tyre burst for reasons which are still not clear. The car veered off the road, uprooted a massive granite marker stone, then flew through the air, snapping off a telegraph pole, and cutting to pieces spectators at the roadside who were pressing forward, regardless of danger, to see the cars pass. Annihilating its crew as it went, it bounced into one ditch, then hurtled across the road into the ditch on the opposite side. The Marquis de portago, his passenger, Eddie nelson, and nine spectators, of whom five were children, died, and several injured.

There is no mention whatever of Miller's starting or retiring... not even of any filming he might have done!
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Old 18 Nov 2010, 12:59 (Ref:2792589)   #11
shaughnessy
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Looking for more Caballo II photos
Miglia Mille, Riverside etc

Thank you in advance

Tom Shaughnessy

PLS PM me if you can help.

Last edited by chunterer; 22 Nov 2010 at 13:13. Reason: I took Tom's email address out. Please pm him with any help.
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Old 19 Nov 2010, 09:16 (Ref:2793019)   #12
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Old 19 Oct 2012, 23:48 (Ref:3154583)   #13
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Still on the hunt for more Miglia Mille photos

Thank you in advance
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