- Inducted in 2005 -
Jim Miller is a third-generation car nut, and got his first taste of car racing when he turned three and was given a real midget race car. Trips to Gilmore, Culver City, El Mirage, and the area's race shops were the norm in his young life; treks to Bonneville and Indy were included by 1952.
Nineteen-fifty-seven was a pivotal year for the then twelve-year-old: a family friend unloaded his old car magazines on him, and that was the beginning of Jim's racing research "library."
By the time Jim crashed his first real car into a hill near the corner of Coldwater Canyon and Mulholland Drive, he had helped build go-karts, sports cars, hot rods, and even a couple of gyrocopters.
When Uncle Sam called, building models for Revell, wrenching on a Lotus 18 and the design and engineering of a Formula 3 car were set aside. After military service, Jim did the tolling for a dune buggy project, went Trans-Am racing for two years, and developed a line of aftermarket suspension parts for Toyotas.
After a motorcycle crash, he spent the next twenty-five years in advertising and kept building the library. A trip to Bonneville in 1995 told him it was time to go racing again. In 1996 Jim became an SCTA Tech Inspector. He was a member of Rich Manchen's 1997 Season Championship team. Rides at Bonneville and entry into the El Mirage Dirty 2 Club followed.
Jim's current racing project is a turbo-powered lakester that he optimistically hopes will see a 250MPH timeslip someday. He is keeping up the family tradition and is designing and building most everything himself. Dad would be proud.
Jim served as Guest Curator for the Land Speed exhibit at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, and now works for the American Hot Rod Foundation as its historian.
