In 1963, when he built a stripped-down, candy-colored car on four big wheels to surf the sands of California’s beaches, Bruce Meyers could hardly have imagined that his ‘dune buggy’ would become the iconic car of the summer.
Meyers, who first christened his invention the Meyers Manx, died earlier this month at his San Diego home after building thousands of lightweight fiberglass cars that only had enough room in the back for a surfboard and a beer.
Meyers, a commercial artist, lifeguard and passionate surfer, also designed boats and surfboards. He built a trading post in Tahiti and survived a Japanese attack on his Navy aircraft carrier during World War II, in which 400 of his fellow sailors were killed.
But Meyers, who was 94 when he died, was best known for the dune buggies he initially built just for himself and his friends, after seeing surfers racing through California’s sand dunes in stripped-down cars in the early 1960s.
“He had a life that no one else has ever lived,” his wife Winnie Meyers said in an interview with the AP. He was still driving his original dune buggy called Old Red.
“I just wanted to go surfing in Baja when I built the thing,” he said in a 2001 interview, adding that the first vehicles were built without chassis, making them lighter, but it is illegal to use public roads. to drive. Later models included chassis, and Meyers sold kits that hobbyists could build them for about $ 1000.
Sales went through the roof when Meyers and his friends entered Old Red in a Mexican 1000 mile road race in 1967. Meyers’ dune buggy won in record time and orders went through the roof.
A year later, Elvis Presley was driving a dune buggy in the opening scenes of the movie “Live a Little, Love a Little”.
His company built more than 6,000 Meyers Manx dune buggies before trademarking the design. The Historic Vehicle Association called the dune buggy the most copied in history, with more than 250,000 versions.
Born in Los Angeles, he was a high school dropout, serving in the Merchant Marines after the war and attending the Chouinard Art Institute, now the California Institute of the Arts.
In 1976, Road and Track Magazine called the dune buggy “a real sculpture, a work of art”.
