There are giants in Hayward.

A wide-eyed dachshund’s head with a chef’s hat and bowtie. A very merry Santa Claus waving to visitors. A lumberjack with an oversized ax resting in his hands; average-size humans measure to his knee.

These are the oversize denizens of Bell Plastics, a custom fabrication company that opens its gates for just one day a year so nostalgic Bay Area residents can revisit the fiberglass statues of decades past.

The most familiar may be those that look like the large lumberjack — bearded men, wearing beanies and with arms positioned to hold or bend something. Also known as “Muffler Men,” they were part of a collection of roadside landmarks and advertisers popular in the 1960s and ’70s, when a company in Los Angeles called International Fiberglass was still in operation, churning out these colossi until its end in 1976. Since then, many have faded from American highways, but not from the hearts of the generations who still remember their towering presence.

Some of these Muffler Men are congregated at Bell Plastics, where a whole host of fiberglass avatars and creatures still exist. Bell Plastics owner Bruce Kennedy makes a multitude of eclectic objects while on the job — taxicab lights, merry-go-round parts, miniature golf decorations — but he has also been collecting, restoring and preserving fiberglass sculptures at Bell Plastics since 2011. His collection includes green octopi-wielding sponges and squeegees from a New Mexico car wash, a “Uniroyal Gal” wearing a pink polka-dot bikini, and two iconic Doggie Diner heads.

But his first acquisition still might be the most popular: Big Mike, a former Morris Car Wash statue wearing a white button-down shirt and blue pants.

“He’s the Hayward icon,” Kennedy said. “He was on Mission Boulevard for years.”

Kennedy’s purchase and restoration of Big Mike was like a saving grace to those who knew and loved the figure from his glory days, and Kennedy has provided that service to many other fiberglass giants over the years. It’s not easy work, and it requires “stacks of money,” according to Kennedy.

“You have to grind out all the broken spots,” Kennedy said. “And replace the fiberglass, and paint them.”

But to Kennedy, it’s worth it. “I like them,” he said. “More than one person has thought I’m nuts.”

And it’s not just Bay Area locals who frequent the free open house, but also nostalgic visitors who fly in from all around the country to see the Muffler Men, according to Kennedy.

“It’s a hidden gem of California,” Alameda resident Kai Wada Roath said. Roath was so enamored that he volunteered to help Bell Plastics market its annual open house this year. He describes there being a “floodgate” of people that morning, all lined up to see Bell Plastics’ infamous Muffler Men.

Hayward resident Berta Villalva posed for pictures next to Big Mike, the Muffler Man she remembers from days of driving down Mission Boulevard. “This is like a blast from the past,” she said.

At the back of the open house, visitors signed a giant card for Big Mike’s “50th birthday,” even though Big Mike has been celebrating his semicentennial for a few years now. Kennedy says it’s easier to keep Big Mike perpetually young than it is to change the sign emblazoned with “Big Mike’s 50th Birthday Bash” that resides at the front of Bell Plastics.

Regardless, 50 (plus) years is a lot to celebrate, and that’s how old many of Bell Plastics’ fiberglass sculptures are, making them rare cultural figures to preserve.

“It’s historic preservation that he does,” Roath said. “And it just had me in awe.”