1917 Miller Golden Submarine

Harry Miller's enclosed race car was many things - it was aerodynamic, safer than open cars, and mercilessly mocked by the press. It was built for Barney Oldfield after the death of his friend Bob Burman in 1916, driving an open cockpit car. The streamlined racer cost Oldfield $15,000 but would earn him many victories.

The Golden Submarine had a 104-inch wheelbase and was powered by a 289 cubic-inch, SOHC, water-cooled, cross-flow four-cylinder engine delivering 136 horsepower.

The inaugural race for the Golden Submarine was the 1917 Chicago War Derby where Oldfield qualified at 107.4 mph. He was leading the race before he was forced to retire after ten miles due to engine issues. Nine days later, Oldfield beat his arch-nemesis, Ralph de Palma and his Packard, in three dirt match races. Throughout 1917, Oldfield had made 35 starts in the Sub and had won 17 times. During the process, he set every international dirt-track speed record.

Although the 'Sub' had been built for safety, it was not built to float. While racing in Atlanta, it lost a wheel and plunged into a lake, nearly claiming Oldfield's life. Later in the season, a fuel tank was punctured, and a fire destroyed the body. Although the body and chassis were badly charred, Oldfield removed the body from mid-cowl to rear and re-enlisted the chassis services.

The cars nor the engines have survived - only replica(s).

by Dan Vaughan

Coupe

The summer of 2007 saw the unveiling of Charles Glick's latest Great Race creation; the 1917 Golden Submarine.

After the 1916 death of his friend Bob Burman, who had been racing an open cockpit car, Barney Oldfield commissioned engineering mastermind Harry Miller to build a new kind of race car with a metal roll cage inside the driver's compartment. The Golden Submarine cost Oldfield $15,000.

Aerodynamically advanced and wind-tunnel tested, the streamlined racer was years ahead of its time in many ways. It had a 104-inch wheelbase and featured a 289 cubic-inch, SOHC, cross-flow, water-cooled 136 horsepower four-cylinder engine, which would make it the forerunner of Miller's highly successful Offenhauser racing engine of later years.

Since the late 1990s, Glick has been involved with building cars for the Great Race. A quirk of fate in 2003 set in motion the events that enabled Glick to become involved in the re-creation of the Golden Submarine. That year he met Dale Bell, a Great Race competitor, who later commissioned Glick to build the Golden Submarine.

'The Golden Submarine's shape was probably influenced by early submarines,' Glick said, 'because the vehicle, though smaller, looks virtually identical to pictures of Russian two-man submarines that operated during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.