When he mounted a stripped-down, candy-colored car on four large wheels in 1963 to sail on the sand on California beaches, Bruce Meyers could hardly imagine that his ‘dune wagon’ would become the iconic car of summer.
Meyers, who first christened his invention the Meyers Manx, died earlier this month at his home in San Diego after building thousands of light fiberglass cars that had just enough room 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 naval aircraft 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 trailers he initially built just for himself and his friends, after seeing surfers racing through California sand dunes in stripped cars in the early 1960s.
“He’s had a life no one else has ever lived,” his wife, Winnie Meyers, said in an interview with the AP. He still drives his original dune wagon, named Old Red.
“All I wanted to do was go surfing in Baja when I built the thing-thing,” he said in an interview in 2001, adding that the first vehicles were built without chassis, which made it lighter , but illegal to drive on public highways. Later models included chassis, and Meyers sold kits that hobbyists could construct for about $ 1,000.
Sales went through the roof when Meyers and his friends entered Old Red in 1967 during a 1,000-mile Mexican road race. Meyers’ dune wagon won in record time and orders went through the roof.
A year later, Elvis Presley rides a dune wagon in the opening scenes of the movie ‘Live a Little, Love a Little’.
His company built more than 6,000 Meyers Manx dune trailers before making the design brand. The Historical Vehicle Association calls the dune wagon the most copied in history, with more than 250,000 versions.
Born in Los Angeles, he was a high school teacher, 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.”
