Beach Buggy UK The History

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The Beach, or Dune Buggy is said to have been invented by Bruce Meyers of California. On Pismo Beach that Bruce first became acquainted with "Dune Buggies". These were V8 powered "water pumpers". These machines were crude and heavy so Bruce took it upon himself to design a lightweight version that would be fun on the beach or in the wilds of Baja. After modifying a Kombi bus with wide rims (called "Little Red Riding Bus") Bruce used his expertise in boat building to design the first fiberglass bodied dune buggy.

Bruce designed and built many small catamarans, among them a 42 foot catamaran that proved to be a winner. Bruce then went on to build the tooling for even more fiberglass sailboats including the California Series designed by Bill Lapworth.

His first 12 cars had monocoque bodies with an integral frame carrying the VW engine and transmission. These cars were expensive and difficult to produce so Bruce re- designed the body to fit on a VW shortened floorpan. As a result, the Meyers Manx started the off-road revolution by building 5,280 Manx kits and several hundred Manx II's - a total of nearly 6,000 Manx kits.

The now famous Meyers Manx took America by storm when magazines like Hot Rod featured the fiberglass car on their covers. The Meyers Manx became so popular that other manufacturers sprung up overnight and ended up producing over 250,000 look-a-likes and near look-a-likes. Bruce tried to stop the floodgates of copies with patent infringement laws but failed to convince the courts that he had produced anything worth a patent.

The Meyers Manx handled better than most other off-road vehicles and was fun to drive. It won numerous slalom events and the Pike's Peak Hill Climb, beating Corvettes, Cobras to boot. Then it set the record for traveling the length of Baja at 34 hours and 45 minutes. The car was driven by Bruce Meyers and Ted Mangels, in the process taking five hours off the then motorcycle record.

Soon after these successes the company produced the Meyers Manx S.R. (Street Roadster). This car was designed for the street only and possessed a sleek aerodynamic shape. It was built to fit on the same shortened VW floorpan as the original Manx to keep the great handing characteristics