Muffler Men are giant, hollow fiberglass statues that were built between 1963 and 1972. They averaged 22 feet tall and were produced in Venice, Calif., by International Fiberglass as simply “Giant Men.” The Muffler Man name wasn’t coined until the 1990s. The founders of Roadside America began cataloging offbeat attractions around the U.S. in the mid-1980s, and noticed the similarities between many of the statues. Because several of the statues were holding mufflers, they began calling them Muffler Men. The first Muffler Man statue was created by Bob Prewitt for his business, Prewitt Fiberglass Animals. Around 1962, Prewitt received an order from someone wanting a 20-foot-tall Paul Bunyan statue. From there, news of the statues hit a variety of magazines and newspapers, and the rest is history.
