What comes to mind when you think about California in the mid to late 60’s. Surfing, Beach Boys, fast boats? What about the Myers Manx VW Dune Buggy?
Hello, I’m your host, Gary Neidert and you’re listening to My First Ride Podcast.
During the mid to late 60’s, all kinds of recreation was available in California. Of course, surfing and the Beach Boys is top of mind. They recorded great songs about girls, cars and playing on the beach.
During that time, building vehicles to play on the sand dunes became extremely popular. Take an old truck chassis, cut and weld, put big tires on it and presto, you have a dune buggy.
There was a guy that built sail boats and surfed that turned his attention to playing on the dunes. He started making fiberglass bodied dune buggies, but, as a business, it wasn’t profitable because the price point was a little too much.
After manufacturing a few units of the original dune buggy, he revamped the design and mated the fiberglass body to a VW chassis and the Myers Manx was born. The creative genius behind this new trend was Bruce Myers. He went on to inspire a whole new industry with his simple, but sexy, design.
Many companies copied what he created. However, they were never the same as Myers’ original creation.
The inspiration for this story came from a local car show I attended in April produced by Mustang Sally Productions. It was held at a local Bass Pro Shop with around 200 vehicles registered.
It was a great show with fantastic vehicles of all types.
As my wife and I were walking through and taking a few photos, we came across a blue metal flake fiberglass dune buggy. As we got closer, I noticed it was a Myers Manx.
As we talked with the owner about his Myers Manx, he began to talk about the background of his car. Turns out it was signed by none other than Bruce Myers.
This got me thinking back to when I was in high school and the memories of my dad buying a VW Dune Buggy.
Unfortunately, it was not a Myers Manx but was well done and looked great. The color was metal flake blue with gray spoke mags and big tires. It was so much fun to drive.
On this episode, I’m going to talk about the origins of the Myers Manx and what’s going on with the company now.
