The Millen brothers remain one of New Zealand’s greatest motorsport exports and found major success in the United States.
Rod and Steve Millen were the definition of all-rounders, whether it be rallying, circuit racing or off-road, the duo soon forged a reputation of being fast in anything.
This story will focus on younger brother Steve, who followed his older sibling to the United States after beginning his motorsport journey in hillclimb competition in 1969 followed by Formula Ford.
During the 1970s, Millen went rallying and headed to the United States at the start of the next decade to compete in the highly popular Mickey Thompson Grand National Sports Truck Series for off-road vehicles racing in stadiums. Millen won the series in 1986 before returning to take a hat-trick of titles from 1992 to 1994.
Millen also won two races in what is known now as Indy Lights back in its inaugural season in 1986, but four years later he was back on the tarmac spearheading Nissan’s IMSA Camel GT program featuring the legendary Nissan 300ZX Turbo.
Clayton Cunningham Racing steered Millen to the title in 1992 in addition to victory at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1994.
Twin-turbo VG engine developed by Electramotive and proved a dominate force against Mazda, Mercury, Ford and Chevrolet in the GTO Class as the 300ZX elevated Millen to rank as Nissan’s number one driver for seven years.
Millen’s 1994 season was big as he not only won at Daytona, but secured victory at Sebring, his class at Le Mans and a second IMSA GTS Championship.
It came in his penultimate season of racing due in part to an injury as a result of a crash while competing in the International Race of Champions at Road Atlanta, while leading the IMSA Camel GTS Series.
Millen holds the record for all-time IMSA GTS victories at 20 and poles with 23.
Away from the race track, Millen began Stillen Motorsports in 1986 specialising in supplying high performance parts for Nissans.
Allan Moffat gave Millen his one opportunity to race at Bathurst alongside Gary Brabham, but this ended in a DNF.
The New Zealander continues to run the successful Stillen Motorsports company to this day in among some other projects focused on Pikes Peak and other hillclimbs.