I’ve realized that I have a kind of type when it comes to people I consider personal heroes. They are mostly mechanically minded tinkerers / artists, people like Alexander Calder or Rebecca Horn or me friend Tom JenningsThey don’t necessarily take themselves too seriously, but they do do meaningful work. There’s another big one on that list, someone I’ve admired for years: Bruce Meyers, the man who pretty much single-handedly started the whole wonderful industry of Volkswagen-based kit cars and dune buggies. He passed away today, at his home in Valley Center, California.
Bruce was best known for the car that bears his name, the Meyers Manx, which is an absolute icon of car design in my opinion, still the image that comes to mind when they hear the words ‘dune buggy’.
People in Southern California had been hacking into “ dune buggy ”-style vehicles from old jeeps and stripped-down cars for years, and when the Volkswagen Beetle started to gain popularity in America in the 1950s, the kind of people who loved driving into piles of sand had started on noticing that the light car had surprisingly good traction, was tough and the bodywork was easy to remove, all great features for a small off-road vehicle.
People started stripping Beetles for off-road use, and Bruce noticed this in the early 1960’s. Bruce wasn’t just content with yanking a Bug’s fenders and holding it up; Bruce was one in fact, no-grapartiest, and he built fiberglass boats for Jensen Marine, a combination that led to the formula that would make him famous: a beautifully designed fiberglass body that screwed directly onto a (shortened) Beetle chassis.
G / O Media can receive a commission
The first version of Bruce’s idea, built in 1964, was a bit different from the later production versions that would come to be called Manxes, after the tailless cats, in that it was more of a unibody design, with hard points to pin down. put the Volkswagen axles and drivetrain but no pan needed.
That first Manx, with green auxiliary fuel tanks made from recycled welding gas tanks, was known as Old Red, made a record-breaking off-road run from Tijuana to La Paz, one that would inspire the famous. Baja 1000 off road race that is still being implemented.
Let’s just take a moment and look at the Meyers Manx because it’s one of those designs that is so intertwined with our cultural auto consciousness that it can be difficult to think about objectively.
Given the limitations of the requirements for the Manx – tough, cheap, easy to assemble in a backyard with basic tools – the result is an absolute triumph in design in my opinion.
The body shell is a base fairing that contains pretty much everything – just screw on a windshield, lights and a roll bar and you’re pretty much ready to go. For the time it was a completely up-to-date design, a totally different design direction from the 1930s Beetle design, and with its almost overhead curved fenders forming the overall shape, it feels like a Eero Saarinen Architectural work, only on a much smaller scale.
Meyers described the Manx in an interview:
I am an artist and I wanted to give the Man a sense of movement and gesture. Dune buggies have a message: fun. They ride playfully and should look like this. Nothing worked at the time. So I looked at it and took care of the familiar. The top of the front fenders had to be flat for a few beers, the sides had to be high enough to keep the mud and sand out of your eyes, it had to be compatible with Beetle mechanics and you had to be able to build it yourself. Then I added all the lines and feminine shapes and Mickey Mouse adventure I could. “
The result was absolutely perfect for what it was supposed to be, perhaps too perfect, as it was imitated almost instantly, mercilessly and relentlessly.
Everyone, even prominent cornerstones of American trade like Sears, began selling shameless Manx clones and despite having a design patent, Meyers was unlucky in court, and the flood of knock-offs led to his bankruptcy in 1971.
Bruce bounced back, inventing the fiberglass hot tub, and build Manxes again later in life.
I met Bruce a few years ago then I was driving a class 11 desert race beetle; he was warm and friendly and we talked for a painfully long time about all kinds of Volkswagen ephemera and dune buggies. He was so sharp and warm, and it was hard to reconcile that this was a real human who made this thing that seemed like it had always existed somehow.
The design of the Manx dune buggy was so iconic to me that meeting Bruce had the same kind of surreal effect you would feel if you were introduced to the person who invented that feeling you get after a long fun day at the beach with friends, when you are young and beautiful and a little sunburnt and your hair feels thick and salty and the sunset makes the inside of your car vivid orange and everything feels wonderful in the world.
It would be like meeting that person. That feeling alone is a car.
I don’t think Bruce Meyers often gets the recognition he deserves as a car designer; he is certainly recognized – his first Manx is on the National Historic Vehicle Register, after all – but I think his achievement makes him one of more recognized individuals car designers such as Virgil Exner or Gordon Buehrig.
He designed a car that launched a whole new class of vehicles, a whole sub-industry; how many car designers can say that?
Bruce Meyers showed the world how much fun cars can be, then put the skill to use to build those cars in the hands of everyone with a few free weekends and a ragged old Volkswagen. His Manx was free from pretense or silly status or attitude – it was simple and fun, and a gift for anyone who likes the feeling of being on the move.
Bruce remains one of my car heroes and he will be missed.