I realized that I have a kind when it comes to people I consider personal heroes. They tend to think mechanically / artists, people like Alexander Calder or Rebecca Horn or me friend Tom Jennings. They do not necessarily take themselves too seriously, but do meaningful work. There’s another big one on the list, someone I’m admired for years: Bruce Meyers, the man who started the whole wonderful industry of Volkswagen instant kits and dune buggies on his own. He passed away today, at his home in Valley Center, California.
Bruce was especially known for the car that bears his name, the Meyers Manx, which I think is an absolute icon of car design. This is still the image that pops into everyone’s mind when they hear the words ‘dune buggy’.
People in Southern California hacked “dune-buggy” vehicles from old Jeeps and stripped cars years ago, and once the Volkswagen Beetle became popular in America in the 1950s, the kind of people who wanted to drive in. heaps of sand began to notice that the light car had surprisingly good traction, was sticky and that the body was easy to remove, all good features for a small off-roader.
People started poaching Beetles for field use, and Bruce noticed this in the early 60’s. Bruce didn’t just want to rip off the screens of A Bug and call it a day; Bruce was a real artist without joke, and he built fiberglass boats for Jensen Marine, a combination that led to the formula that would make him famous: a wonderfully designed fiberglass body that could bolt to a (shortened) Beetle chassis.
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The first version of Bruce’s idea, built in 1964, was a little different from the later production that would be named after the tailless cats Manxes, because it was more of a unibody design, with hard points to fasten. the Volkswagen axles and drivetrain, but it is not necessary for the pan.
That first Manx, with green addition of fuel tanks made from remanufactured welding gas tanks, was known as Old Red, and made an off-road track from Tijuana to La Paz, a run that would inspire the famous. Baja 1000 veldren it is still done today.
Let’s take a moment here and look at the Meyers Manx, because it’s one of the designs so intertwined in our cultural motor consciousness that it can be difficult to think objectively.
Given the limitations of the requirements for the Manx – tough, inexpensive, easy to assemble in a backyard with basic tools – the result is, I believe, an absolute triumph.
The bowl is one basic bath in which almost everything is incorporated – you just turn to a windshield, lights and a roller bar, and you’re good to go. For the era, it was a completely updated design, a completely different design design than the Beetle Design of the 1930s, and with its almost pliable curved screens that form 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 wanted to give the man a sense of movement and gesture. Dune wagons have a message: nice. They are playful to drive and should look like that. Nothing was done at the time. Then I looked at it and took care of the knowledge. The top of the front fenders had to be flat to hold 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 make it yourself build. Then I added all the line and female form and Mickey Mouse adventure I could. ”
The result was absolutely perfect for what it was supposed to be, perhaps too perfect, for it was imitated almost immediately, mercilessly and relentlessly.
Everyone, even the cornerstones of American trade like Sears, was selling shameless Manx clones and despite owning a design patentMeyers was unhappy in court, and the tidal wave finally drove him out of pocket in 1971.
Bruce jumped back, inventing the fiberglass bath, and later in life to rebuild Manxes.
I had to meet Bruce a few years ago when I drove a class 11 desert beetle; He was warm and friendly and we talked for a long time about all kinds of Volkswagen and dune-buggy-ephemera. He was so sharp and warm, and it was hard to reconcile that it was a real human being who created this thing that seemed to somehow always have to exist.
The Manx dune buggy design was so iconic to me that meeting Bruce had the same surreal effect as you would feel if you were introduced to the person imagining the feeling you get after a long day at the beach with friends You are young and beautiful and a little sunburned and your hair feels thick and salty and the sunset makes the inside of your car make shades of bright orange and everything feels wonderful in the world.
It would be like meeting that person. Just all these feelings are a car.
Bruce Meyers I think I do not often get the recognition he deserves as a car designer; he is certainly recognized – his first Manx is in the National Historic Vehicle Register, after all – but I think his performance places him among other things recognized car designers like Virgil Exner or Gordon Buehrig.
He designed a car that ignited a new class of vehicle, an entire sub-industry; how many car designers can say that?
Bruce Meyers showed the world how many cars could be cars, and used the ability build those cars in the hands of anyone with a few free weekends and a rattling Volkswagen. His Manx was free of pretension or foolish status or attitude – it was simple and fun, and a gift to anyone who loves the sensation of being in motion.
Bruce remains one of my car heroes, and he will be missed.