When he built a faded, candy-colored car mounted on four big wheels to sail on the sand of California’s beaches in 1963, Bruce Meyers could scarcely have imagined that the “dune cart” would become the iconic summer.
Meyers, who first named his invention Meyers Manx, died at his home in San Diego earlier this month after building thousands of lightweight fiberglass cars that had just enough space 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 aircraft carrier during World War II, in which 400 fellow sailors were killed.
But Meyers, who was 94 when he died, was best known for the dune carts he originally built just for himself and his friends, after seeing surfers flowing through the dunes in the early 1960s. of California sand in naked cars.
“He had a life that no one else has ever lived,” his wife Winnie Meyers said in an interview with AP. He was still driving his original cart, called the Old Red.
“All I wanted to do was surf in Baja when I built the dang thing,” he said in a 2001 interview, adding that the first vehicles were built without a chassis, which made them easier, but illegal to drive on public highways. Subsequent models included chassis, and Meyers sold sets that allowed enthusiasts to build them for about $ 1,000.
Sales went through the roof when Meyers and his friends entered the Old Red on a 1,000-mile Mexican road race in 1967. Meyers’ dune buggy won in record time, and orders went through the roof.
A year later, Elvis Presley drove a dune cart in the opening scenes of “Live a Little, Love a Little.”
His company built more than 6,000 Meyers Manx dune carts before the design brand. The association of historic vehicles has named the most copied dune cart in history, with over 250,000 versions.
Born in Los Angeles, he dropped out of high school, served in the Merchant Marines after the war, and attended the Chouinard Art Institute, now the California Institute of the Arts.
In 1976, Road and Track Magazine called the dune cart “an authentic sculpture, a piece of art.”
