I realized that I have a kind of guy when it comes to people I consider personal heroes. They tend to be players / artists with mechanical thoughts, people like Alexander Calder or Rebecca Horn or mine friend Tom Jennings. They don’t necessarily take themselves too seriously, but they do a significant job. There’s another big one on this list, someone I’ve admired for years: Bruce Meyers, the man who started pretty much alone with the whole wonderful industry of Volkswagen-based kit cars and dune carts. He died today, at his home in Valley Center, California.
Bruce was best known for the car that bears his name, the Meyers Manx, which is, I think, an absolute icon of car design, still the image that pops into everyone’s mind when they hear the words “dune buggy.”
People in Southern California hacked together dune bug vehicles from old Jeeps and cars stripped for years, and once the Volkswagen Beetle began to gain popularity in America in the 1950s, the kind of people they liked. to drive piles of sand began to notice that the light car had a surprisingly good traction, was tough and the body was easy to remove, all excellent qualities for a small off-roader.
People began stripping Beetles for off-road use, and Bruce noticed this in the early 1960s. Bruce didn’t just pull his wings off a Bug and tell him one day; Bruce was a real artist, no joke, and 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 even be attached to a (shortened) Beetle chassis.
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The first version of Bruce’s idea, built in 1964, was a little different from later production ones to be called Manxes, after the tailless cats, in the sense that it was more of a one-body design with hard points to fix. Volkswagen axles and transmission, but no frying pan needed.
The first Manx, with additional green fuel tanks made from reused welded gas tanks, was known as the Old Red, made a record off-road race from Tijuana to La Paz, a race that would inspire the famous Low 1000 off-road racing which is still running today.
Let’s take a moment here and look at Meyers Manx, because it’s one of those models that is so woven into our car cultural consciousness that it can be hard to think objectively.
Given the limitations of the requirements for Manx – hard, cheap, easy to assemble in a yard with basic tools – the result is, I think, and the design absolutely triumphs.
The body is a single basic bathtub that incorporates almost everything – simply screws on a windshield, lights and a running bar and you’re good to go, a bit much. For the era, it was a completely updated design, a completely different design direction from the Beetle design of the 1930s and with its almost catenary curved wings that form the overall shape as a Eero Saarinen Architectural works, only on a much smaller scale.
Meyers described Manx in an interview:
I am an artist and I wanted to give the person a sense of movement and gesture. Dune buggies have a message: fun. They are playful at the wheel and should look like that. He did nothing at that moment. So I looked at him and took care of the acquaintances. The top of the front wings had to be flat to hold a few beers, the sides had to climb high enough to keep mud and sand out of the eyes, it had to be compatible with Beetle mechanics, and you had to be able to build it yourself. Then I added all the feminine line and shape and Mickey Mouse adventure I could. ”
The result was absolutely perfect for what it was supposed to be, maybe too perfect, because it was imitated almost immediately, mercilessly and relentlessly.
Everyone, even the cornerstones of American trade, such as Sears, began selling shameless Manx clones and despite holding a design patent, Meyers had bad luck in court, and the wave of knockoffs got him out of business in 1971.
Bruce is back, inventing a fiberglass hot tub, and later in life, resuming to build Manxes.
I have to meet Bruce a few years ago, when I was driving a Class 11 Desert Racing Beetle; it was warm and kind and we talked with a lot of pain about all kinds of Volkswagen and ephemeral buggy dunes. It was so sharp and hot and it was hard to reconcile that it was a real human being who created this that seemed to have always existed somehow.
The Manx dune buggy design was so iconic to me that meeting Bruce had the same kind of surreal effect you would have felt if he had introduced you to the person who invented that feeling you get after a long day. fun at the beach with friends, when you are young and beautiful and a bit sunburned, and your hair feels thick and salty, and the sunset makes the interior of your car have shades of bright orange and everything feels wonderful in the world.
It would be like knowing that person. Only this whole feeling is a car.
Bruce Meyers thinks he doesn’t often get the recognition he deserves as a car designer; becomes recognized for sure – his the first Manx is on the National Register of Historic Vehicles, after all – but I think his achievement puts him among the most recognized car designers like Virgil Exner or Gordon Buehrig.
He designed a car that triggered a new class of vehicles, an entire sub-industry; how many car designers can say that?
Bruce Meyers showed the world how fun cars can be, then put the ability in fact build those cars in anyone’s hands with a few free weekends and a shabby old Volkswagen. His manx was unpretentious or in poor condition or posture – it was simple and fun and a gift for all those who love the feeling of being on the move.
Bruce remains one of my car heroes and will be missed.