I stumbled on this in the Waymarking site. There’s a category of Giant Fiberglass Statues a.k.a. Muffler Men. I noticed a lot of them looked alike and must have been produced by one company for sale. After a quick Google search I found my answer and an interesting story.
Steve: These characters — and many others — were made by a company called International Fiberglass, which I owned and ran during the mid 1960s until around 1974. They were sold as attention getters for retail stores.
Our main business was working with the large oil and tire companies and restaurant chains for nationwide programs. For example, we built a series of Phillips Petroleum cowboys, Texaco Big Friends, and US Rubber Miss Uniroyals. We also did ENCO and Humble tigers, and Sinclair Dinosaurs.
We had a variety of figures which we adapted from one mold — such as golfers, cowboys, spacemen, Indians, muffler men, etc. We also built a bunch of different animals such as horses, steers, cows, giant chickens, etc.
Origin of the Species on Roadside America
