Winter Garden's beloved tire lady restored

Saturdays were special for Sherri Holton Todd when she was a little girl, because that was the day she visited her grandmother in Winter Garden. Sitting in the back of her family’s car as they rode from Groveland, she was too small to see over the front seat, so she always watched out the side window for the giant tire lady on State Road 50.

That meant she was almost to Granny’s house.

“The excitement of seeing her never ended,” Todd said.

The 18-foot-tall Fiberglas icon stood in front of the former Griffith Tire Co. on what is now known as West Colonial Drive. The shop is now Clark Tire & Automotive.

Todd, along with thousands of West Orange County residents in the 1970s and ’80s, remember the tire-shop mascot, with her yellow shirt, blue skirt and auburn hair. She had no official name, but local folks called her everything from descriptive names such as Big Mama and Tire Lady to the more personal nicknames of Shirley and Aunt Carol.

She was one of the original Uniroyal Gals, custom-made in 1966 as a Uniroyal Tire promotion. Former owner Noel Griffith, of Winter Garden, recalls when his father, Wilson Griffith, founder of Griffith Tire, bought her in Fort Myers and brought her back to Winter Garden to attract the attention of drivers who might need a patch or new set of tires.

There she stood for years, getting the occasional paint job and more than a few curious children and adults peeking up her skirt to see what was underneath. Those who took a gander saw red bikini bottoms, her original attire.

Gigi Hall, whose brother-in-law is Noel Griffith, said people frequently referenced the Uniroyal Gal as a route marker.

“One time a man asked directions from someone. … They just told him, ‘If you see the giant lady on your right, then you’re going the right way.’ … It was always a way to find places. People would always use her as a key point.”

In the 1990s, the landmark tire lady was relocated down the road to Jay’s Marine, where her outerwear was removed and she was positioned outside the business clad only in her bikini.

When the land was leveled to make way for the Publix shopping center and Tijuana Flats restaurant, her fate was unknown for several decades.

Until now.

A NEW HOME

Winter Garden’s renowned tire lady is standing tall — near a restored Muffler Man — in Dallas, Georgia, wearing a Wonder Woman-themed top, skirt and boots as the mascot of Atlantis Plumbing. Her auburn hair is now black.

Curious people checking under the skirt — painted blue with white stars — will see the bikini continues the red-and-blue superhero theme.

Her makeover was a 10-month process that really started about five years ago.

Joel Baker and a few of his friends run American Giants, a company in Illinois that locates, restores and sells the Fiberglas statues. Baker was familiar with Roadside America, a group of men who traveled around the country and created online maps of roadside attractions.

He became interested in the giant figures around 2011, when he traveled for work. He took side trips to look for the statues but discovered he was more intrigued with attempting to locate the ones that had disappeared.

When a business trip brought Baker to Central Florida, he drove to Winter Garden to see the Uniroyal Gal, who was last seen at the boat business that had been located near Colonial and South Park Avenue. He found the Tijuana Flats restaurant instead.

Fast forward to 2016, when Baker received a comment on the American Giants website — someone had been storing the Winter Garden gal.

After the boat business closed, Big Mama was relegated to a backyard nearby, where she lay for decades.

“That was really cool to find her,” said Baker, who had seen just a handful of photographs of her at the tire and boat businesses.

He was excited to see she wasn’t in bad condition; she had lost a foot but otherwise didn’t have much Fiberglas damage. And she had her clothes with her.

“A lot of the time when we find these girls they don’t have their clothes,” Baker said. “I was ecstatic that she still had her skirt. After seeing pictures about her and keeping my eyes open trying to find her — it’s kind of like, in my little world of giants, it’s like discovering King Tut’s tomb.”

Baker took photos of her and told the owners he would be interested in buying her if she was for sale. Months later, he received the phone call he had been waiting for.

“I think they liked the idea that we were going to restore her and bring her back,” he said.

Baker wouldn’t divulge the price, but he did say this: “The giants have definitely gone up in value. They are worth thousands now, as opposed to hundreds.”

The statue was pressure-washed and hauled to Illinois, where the team began the restoration process.

“We sanded her down to the original gel coat; it’s basically the layer on top of the Fiberglas,” Baker said. “We sanded all the paint off. We fixed a lot of pinholes and a lot of small structural issues in the Fiberglas.”

One of Baker’s business associates, who had created a complete mold of the Uniroyal Gal, made a new foot and mailed it to American Giants.

“When you prime the whole girl and paint it, she has a replacement foot, but you’d never know it,” he said.

In the meantime, Baker found a man in Georgia who was interested in buying the former Winter Garden girl. He requested she be painted like Wonder Woman.

“In the catalog that sold them, they were called Miss America, so we thought that was a good fit,” Baker said.

The statue’s outerwear is actually two pieces — a front half and a back half — that are fused together. Baker said the new owner has no plans to expose the bikini.

“But we spent the extra money to make her look nice under there, in case the owner sells her to someone else,” he said. “We kind of went all out on her. I went over my budget on her. But it’s about bringing them back. The passion is to bring these long-lost giants a chance to be enjoyed once more by the public.

“For me, it’s about history,” he said. “It’s about the highways of America, the things that … people remember in their childhood and what roadside Americana was back then. And when you can see these giants again all these years later, I think it’s reminiscent of one’s childhood.”

Baker acknowledges that there are mixed feelings in communities when their statues are removed, but he has found that people are happy to see they have been restored, even if they are in another city or state.

And he added: “If any business owner ever wants to get one of these girls back, I can certainly help make that happen.”

Do you want to inquire about purchasing a Uniroyal Gal or a Muffler Man? Email [email protected].

“It was sad when she left us all,” Hall said. “It was like part of the family. The lady was an icon around our once-small town.”