Leon Miller is an agriculturist by training, and had a successful career in agri-business before he ever thought about getting into the automobile business. But his second career, which began as a labor of love, is in many ways a bigger success than his first.

Leon was born in Garland, Texas, but his parents soon returned to their home state of Missouri, and it was there that he grew up and attended school. He married his high school sweetheart, Kay Carr, just before his junior year at the University of Missouri.

In 1956, the young couple moved from Missouri to a ranch in Montana, then to Colorado, then to California, and finally to Texas, where they established Alta Verde Industries near the border town of Eagle Pass. For twenty-six years, they were very successful in a number of agricultural endeavors, including cattle feeding, meat packing and commercial vegetable growing.

Although he had made his living in agriculture, Miller had always been interested in cars. “As a kid, I traded cars a lot.” he recalls. When Jeep introduced its pioneering Wagoneers (forerunners of today’s luxury SUVs), he was impressed with the classic styling, rugged versatility and luxurious ride. “I liked the sharp, sharp lines and the earthy look of the old woodies.” He says. “I owned several Grand Wagoneers in my previous business, but I had never done any restorations.”

When the Millers retired to Kerrville in 1992, Leon went to the dealership to buy a new Grand Wagoneer. To his dismay, he was told that “they’re not making them anymore.” Wondering why not, Miller took his question to the upper management of Chrysler, which in 1987 had bought out the Jeep manufacturers. He was introduced to the man who had designed the original Grand Wagoneer (Brooks Stevens), who told him he’d have to buy a 1991 model and restore it. “Make a ’92 out of it!” Stevens advised.

Miller was already looking for a project to work on in his retirement, so he took the designer’s advice; restoring the year-old Grand Wagoneer and updating it to make it a “1992 model.”

“As soon as I was finished, somebody wanted to buy it,” Miller recalls. “They wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I sold it and bought another to restore.” The same thing happened, again and then again. “I told my wife that this would be a great back-yard business.”

The Jeep Wagoneer dates back to the early 1960s, when Willys Motors decided to replace its post-war Jeep station wagon with a new, family-sized vehicle built on the frame of its rugged Gladiator pickup truck. As the company changed from Willys to Kaiser to American Motors, the Wagoneer evolved into the Super Wagoneer (1964), the more luxurious Wagoneer Limited (1978) and the highly-acclaimed Grand Wagoneer (1984).

The Grand Wagoneer became the “gold standard of the SUV market,” with its powerful V-8 engine, 4-wheel drive, leather seats and ultra-smooth ride; demand was strong among upscale buyers through the mid-1980s. By the time Chrysler purchased American Motors and Jeep in 1987, other SUVs had eroded the Wagoneer’s market, and by 1991, sales had dipped to the point where the Grand Wagoneer was no longer profitable. Although Chrysler continued to use the Wagoneer name on some of its smaller SUVs, the Grand Wagoneer as we knew it was discontinued. But while the sales numbers had dwindled, an enthusiastic group of Wagoneer loyalists remained; Leon Miller had unintentionally tapped into that group.

Miller’s business was made possible by the then-still-new World Wide Web. Being very selective in his acquisitions (He only buys low-mileage vehicles -- less than 70,000 miles -- which are clean, never-damaged and rust-free), he soon exhausted the local supply of Grand Wagoneers. Through his award-winning website (www.wagonmaster.com), he was able to reach Wagoneer owners (and potential buyers) across the country and even around the world. He currently gets two or three calls a day from people wanting to sell their Wagoneers; he usually buys “one out of every forty or fifty.”

Making deals is Miller’s favorite part of the business. “Being a retired cattle man,” he says, “I’m a trader at heart. I really enjoy the buying and selling.” One of his most memorable purchases was in 1998, when a lady called from Rock Springs, Wyoming to ask if he would like to buy a 1986 Wagoneer with 600 miles on it. It turned out that her husband had ordered it (his dream car) just before he was diagnosed with cancer, and had taken a turn for the worse while driving it home from the dealership. He was never well enough again to drive it, and after ten years of just starting it up at regular intervals, his widow decided to sell it. She was asking the original purchase price of nearly $23,000; Miller got it for $20,000.

By then, he already had quite a few celebrity customers. French designer Philippe Starck had already placed an order for a good, low-mileage Grand Wagoneer; this 1986 model went to him. Tommy Hilfiger and his wife, Susan were customers, and each bought two Grand Wagoneers from Miller. More recently, he’s sold Grand Wagoneers to football star Kordell Stewart, actor/politician Fred Thompson’s son, actor Mikelti Williamson, and country music stars Alan Jackson and Hank Williams Jr., as well as several others.

Miller’s customers come from as far away as Europe, Japan and the Middle East, but he notices a cluster of orders from places like Nantucket Island (42 so far) and southern Connecticut. “Grand Wagoneers are very popular in the suburban towns near New York City,” he says. “Sometimes you’ll see five or six parked at the train station” (where suburbanites park for the commute to the city). More than half his customers are women, and a disproportionate number are in the architecture or design business.

For the first few years, Miller took his Grand Wagoneers to several local mechanic shops to do different phases of his restorations. By 1998 (after he had already restored three or four hundred of the vehicles), he purchased a “shop of my own,” with four bays, two indoors and two out, on Highway 27 in Kerrville. He employs four workers there.

Miller calls his projects “renewals,” and generally spends five to ten thousand dollars making each vehicle better than new. He doesn’t do fancy, customized paint jobs (he’ll change the color only on a special request), but he does offer extras such as sunroofs, XM radios, video and stereo systems, heated seats, etc. Wagonmaster details each vehicle meticulously, testing engines thoroughly and replacing pumps, hoses, filters and other parts as necessary. He generally sells the finished product at prices near their original value. For the sake of his workers, who might get bored doing the same thing over and over, he occasionally renews a Jeepster Commando, a vehicle built by Jeep from 1966 to 1973. Two of Miller’s prize Commando convertibles were sold to the prime minister of Kuwait, who gave them to his twin sons. Wagonmaster has “renewed” 40 or 50 of the unique Jeepsters in between Grand Wagoneer renewals, which now total 1,368 units and counting!

Miller’s devotion to detail is legendary, and that trait is essential to the success of his business, since 95 percent of his customers buy over the internet without ever seeing the product. One testimony to Miller’s excellent reputation was a November order – a faxed request “from the desk of Hank Williams Jr.” for “da best” Wagoneer in stock. The singer had heard of Wagonmaster from his friend, Alan Jackson. It took just one telephone call to finalize the deal.

Miller’s business has attracted attention not only from customers, but from the media. He has been featured in several newspapers and car magazines, including an October 2006 article in the German magazine Motor Klassik. Since then, articles on Wagonmaster have appeared in Men’s Vogue, Motor Presse Stuttgart, Directions and (now) Texas Hill Country magazine.