ULTIMATE VINTAGE: The perfectly restored Drino Miller single-seat special is a jewel of craftsmanship. A strong but ultra-lightweight package, the chassis features an 84-inch wheelbase and a dual-hoop roll cage. The car rolls on ultra-rare magnesium "Baja Star" wheels by American Racing. Four Cibie "Oscar" lights at the front are another signature feature of this historic classic.

A tall and lanky off-road racing legend walks through a lonely Southern California warehouse, his large strides taking him toward a small blue car parked among several restored machines of desert racing history. Reunited with a sparkling piece of his past, Drino Miller beams with satisfaction as he looks over every inch of his creation.

Miller is a perfectionist. Blessed with the mental ability to condense the most complex of engineering issues to the barest of essentials, the soft spoken Miller was the "thinking man's" racer. In an era when a majority of his competitors were still treating Baja racing like a backyard hobby, it was Miller and his radical single-seat car that propelled the off-road community to its next level of preparation and execution.

Miller began his love affair with Baja at an early age. Before attending college to study law and government at the University of Michigan, he had built a Meyer's Manx and taken many trips south of the Mexican border.

After providing consulting work to Vic Hickey and the Hurst Baja Boot project, Miller returned to his native Southern California, ready to build a car of his own design to take on the new but growing sport he helped pioneer.

MEMORY LANE

Running his hand over the recently restored car he wrestled to an overall NORRA Mexican 1000 victory in 1970, Miller acknowledges that by the time he began the new project, his legendary perfectionism had already taken hold. "To succeed in racing I just learned to do things exactly right by just following up and following up and following up until you get things exactly right," he says. "By accident, I got to the same place that people like Roger Penske already was or that Cal Wells Jr. [of PPI Racing fame] would later get to."

This Drino Miller-built VW powerplant displaces 2,180ccs, thanks to an 82mm German SPG roller crank. Dual carburetors are Zenith 32 NDIX units taken from a Porsche 356. The unique exhaust system was another Miller development

Miller took a cold, calculating view of the desert racing landscape. He quickly surmised that a light, small and properly engineered car that was professionally prepared would allow him to compete directly with the Stroppe Broncos and the Hickey-prepared Baja Boots.

Better yet, his new car would be a single seater, an outrageous notion as most of the competition buggies still carried a driver and co-driver. It would have to be lightweight, with a high-powered engine to maximize the all-conquering power-to-weight ratio. Another important aspect to Miller was safety. Having just seen his former boss and off-road mentor Bruce Meyers get seriously hurt in a fiberglass car the year before, Miller knew that proper tube frame construction was the only thing that made sense.