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| Some people well tell you that
the "Piss Yellow" coupe in the movie American Graffiti
single-handedly brought back Hot Rod cars. One thing is for certain;
it and the movie help feed the fire that grew into the multi-billion
dollar Hot Rod industry that thrives today! Lucas launched not only
his career with this movie (and the career of his film stars); he
also launched Street Rodding's career as well!
Several years ago I was standing in the famous Roy Brizio Street Rods shop talking to parts manager Dave Catellini about that very subject when he said he knew the guy who now owns "Milner's Coupe"! I said "Dave, you've got to see if he'll let me photograph the car?" Dave set up a date with car owner Rick Figari of San Francisco. Rick was more then happy to pull the car out of the garage for us to shot pictures of it!! Rick explained that when he first saw the car at Steve Fitch's ranch in Wichita, the car looked pretty rough. It had been sitting out behind the barn exposed to the elements. The aluminum valve covers had been replaced with stock orange Chevy valve covers, the two fours manifold that they used on the car in the sequel had its air cleaners stolen and so the motor was full of water, the chrome was dull, faded and chipping. But all that didn't matter to Rick...this was the car of his dreams. He had fallen in love with the car after seeing the movie and he just had to own it! Once Rick got it back to northern California, he drained the motor and put in fresh oil and changed the filter. Much to his surprise, it fired right up and it still runs strong today. Next, he searched for a replacement for the missing Man-A-Fre four twos manifold and the Rochester 2g carbs. Rick says he doesn't drive the car when he has a cold because there's no fuse box -- if he smelt something burning he would pull the car over and check all the wiring. This car is rough, the carpet is falling apart, the upholstery is torn and worn, the firewall is rusty. When I asked Rick why he didn't fix the car up he had a very good answer: "I want the car to remain as original as possible" It's only recently that Rick started making improvements to the car. He figured if he was going to drive the car, a fuse box was a must! So Roy Brizio's Street Rods rewired the car but mounted the new fuse box under the cowl vent, out of sight! Rick has also had a lot of the chrome replated. But it was decided that the old, custom-made headers wouldn't survive an acid deep at the platers, so they were powder coated in a chrome finish. The coupe's grille was painted flat black (as seen here) for the sequel, but since these pictures were taken Rick has had it replated. Rick is taking great care in restoring the car without changing it.
Some interesting things about the car: There are "U" shaped brackets on the bottom frame rail on each side of the car. These were used to bolt-on and bolt-off platforms for the movie cameras and directors' chairs. If you watch closely during the movie, you'll notice that the hinged front window flops open every time the car accelerates. This is because there's a rope tied around the window post on the passenger side and the other end of the rope was tied to the director, George Lucas! The passenger's side door lock under the door handle is missing -- we think that was used to feed microphone wires through the door. The "THX 138" plates were custom made for the movie. One of Lucas' good luck charms is to carry something from his past movie into the next movie. The plate refers to his first movie "THX 1138", a sci-fi movie filmed here in northern California (many of the underground shots are actually the Oakland/Alameda tube that runs under the water between the two cities). If you look very closely in Star Wars, you'll see some fuzzy dice hanging in the Millenium Falcon. The car was originally a full fendered, red, Street Rod and was purchased by the film crew mainly because it had a chopped top and the script (Lucas!) wanted a chopped top fender-less Hot Rod. Rick's not sure, but he thinks the cars been repainted since the movie.
One thing Rick told me when he bought the car he was disappointed that the THX plates and "piston" gearshift knob were missing. Two very important pieces. One day Rick was chasing down a burning wire smell and pulled back the driver's side kick panel and found both the plates and gear shift knob underneath it! Special thanks to Rick Figari for sharing his very historic hot rod with us! |
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Shortly after the sequel, MPC models released a model kit of the car. Unfortunately the kit didn't have the parts to do the original version of the car. An unbuilt kit sells today in the range of $100-150 each. As an example of how internationally famous this car is, I've included a shot of a model replica of the coupe that Suichi Sakamoto of Japan built. Suichi's model does a beautiful job of capturing Milner's coupe in 1/24th scale. |
| RELATED COUPE SITES Project THX138: a site dedicated to the coupe Rick Figari's Official Yellow Deuce Coupe Site | |
| A great model of the Milner car. | 
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A shot of a repro car sent in by Doug |
| "The Fastest Thing in the (Lebanon) Valley" (PA) owned by Bruce, aka Greaser |
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Another shot of Greaser's car. |
| A '32 Ford repro owned by Dave. |
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The engine of Dave's '32. |
| A '32 Ford repro owned by Joe. |
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The special engine of Joe's '32. |
| Another pic of Joe's great car! |  |
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Jay is building his "son of Milner" from the bottom up! |
| A view of the engine in Jay's coupe. |  |
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Jay is out crusin' in the '32... |
| Check out the license plate! |  |
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Jay and the completed '32 (with the dashboard signed by Paul Lemat!) |
| A '32 Ford coupe owned by Kevin. |
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The "bitchin'" engine of Kevin's '32. |
| A '32 Ford repro built by Charles and his dad. Charles tells me the dashboard is signed by Paul LeMat! |
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A passenger side shot of the car. |
| The driver's side is beautiful! |  |