Nitro Girl: Uniroyal SuperGal
Blackwood, New Jersey
Ed Werbany Jr. foresaw the popularity of Wonder Woman ten years before her cinematic revival, when he took his standard-issue Uniroyal Gal and transformed her into Nitro Girl. "I heard that Super Woman [sic] would be coming out in a few years," he told us in 2007, "so I figured we'd be ahead of the curve."
The Jackie Kennedy lookalike had stood outside Werbany Tire Town since 1965, when Ed's dad bought the statue for $300. She always held a tire, even in the years when she was known as "The Doll" and was dressed in a simple green top and turquoise skirt. But Ed Jr. sensed a cultural shift in roadside giantess tectonics, and in July 2007 he hired two woman artists, Karen Baxter and Linda M. Shelley, to give the 18-foot-tall statue a complete makeover.
Their design was a wise hybrid, suggesting Super Girl and Wonder Woman but never coming close enough to either to stir up comic book lawyers. Nitro Girl was given stars in her hair and on her skirt, superhero boots and gloves, a W-with-wings logo on her chest, and a face with a more confident expression. Even the upheld tire -- the one vestige of the Gal's previous identity -- was painted with stars and the Nitro Girl name.
The star-spangled superhero proved so popular that Ed Jr. began selling Nitro Girl bobbleheads, which, according to the Werbany Tire Town website, are still available.