Bruce Meyer sparked the dune buggy craze with the Meyer Manx, but bad luck in business meant he never reaped the financial rewards, writes Chris Chilton
'BRUCE MEYERS is a loser'. Weathered hands punch out the headline in the sky as he ruminates on the tone of my impending story. It's a tale of a cult hero, a creative genius but a serially unlucky businessman who should probably have been a millionaire 10 times over.
Instead, at 82-years-old, he is stuck in his garage rubbing down a big hunk of glassfibre. Across the front yard, his 87-year-old brother is busy hanging a door on the front of Bruce's house. The Meyers evidently are not a family that like to sit out their retirement in front of the television.
That's good news because otherwise, the 21st century dune buggy powered by a Subaru STi flat four sitting outside wouldn't exist. Forty-five years after he built his first, the Manx, Bruce Meyers is back selling dune buggies again.
As someone born into the inclement weather of northeast England a decade after Bruce Meyers had his automotive epiphany in sunny southern California in 1963, it would be easy to make the mistake of thinking the dune buggy craze he created was simply a silly fad.
While it certainly was a fad, it wasn't silly. The Manx's tale encompasses motor sport success, Hollywood royalty and technical innovation.
Bruce Meyers didn't invent the dune buggy, but he did get it right. A proper surfing beach-boy he'd watch crude home-brewed tube-framed buggies messing around in the dunes at Pismo beach north of Los Angeles after the second World War and knew he could do better using a Volkswagen Beetle as a base.
The Bug didn't have much power but it was light and the rear-engined layout was great for traction. Others had thought the same including VW dealer Joe Vittone. But with its primitive folded metal body his Empi Sportster was about as elegant as an Anderson shelter.
So Meyers, a trained boat builder, used his nautical expertise and dreamed up a swooping fibreglass monocoque structure to which were bolted the suspension and running gear of a humble Volkswagen. Deliveries began in 1964 but just 12 were built before he switched to a new version which bolted to the Beetle floorpan. "It was costing me time and money to make all these fiddly bits and the guys building the kits were only having to swap the stuff over," he says. Thus was born an entire VW-based kit car industry.
Then Meyers and friend Ted Mangels wondered if they could beat the bikes that regularly timed themselves racing down the Baja pensinsula. With just a couple of days to prepare he cobbled together some long range fuel tanks from old gas bottles that were held on to the front and side of the car by nothing more than a couple of jubilee clips.
They completed the run from La Paz to Tijuana in 34.45 hours, smashing the fastest two-wheeled time by over five hours, essentially creating off-road car racing in America and paving the way for the official Mexican 1000 race.
"Buggy beats bikes in Baja!" screamed the press release that went around the world.
"I want a Meyers Manx!" screamed the hungry public.
When the first official race took place later that year, a Manx won again. Then came Hollywood, and appearances in the Thomas Crown Affairand Live a Little, Love a Littlestarring Elvis Presley which I haven't seen but Meyers advises is crap.
The quirky Californian fun car had gone global. The motoring press put it on their covers, even US fun-car bible Hot Roddid, and sales exploded.
The trouble was Meyers didn't have a hope of sating demand and before long a slew of copycat firms sprang up.
Of the 200,000-plus buggies sold around the world since 1963, Meyers Manx Inc was directly responsible for around 6,000. Most of the others were at least inspired by the Manx and in many cases pure rip-offs.
"A guy came up to me at a show a couple of years ago and told me that he'd bought a kit off me and used to drive around the country from town to town offering fibreglass companies the chance to make a mould," says Myers. Even now, you can tell that hurts.
To counter the copiers, Meyers branched out, offering the Tow'd, a simple tube-framed buggy designed for off-road use that could be hitched to the back of a car - towed, geddit? - and dragged into the desert and then the Street Roadster, a dedicated on-road sports car, again Beetle-based but with Lamborghini scissor doors, albeit a year before Gandini had thought of the Countach.
Meyers didn't just lose out on the cars. Toymakers were just as quick to catch on to the craze and churn out miniature Manxes mostly without a license. The merchandising possibilities alone must have been worth hundreds of thousands. Although he'd patented his design several years earlier when he did try to take a faker to court the judge overturned the patent.
Out of pocket and patience, Meyers quit and spent the next two decades miserable.
Miserable but creatively active. Bruce invented a lot of things, mostly out of glassfibre, using his skills as a boat builder. He developed a fibreglass hot tub when everyone else was still using wood, came up with a child's bed in the shape of a car and invented a fibreglass load liner to protect pick up beds. Somebody made a lot of money out of those ideas, but it wasn't Bruce.
But in 1994 he was invited to an 1100-strong dune buggy rally in Le Mans and, overawed by the enthusiasm of the owners, he was persuaded to get back into the game. "I spent 20 years feeling sorry for myself," says Meyers. "But you can't change the past, you can't even change 10 minutes ago."
First came a limited run of classic two-seat Manx buggies, then two new cars, the four-seat road-biased Manxster and a serious off-roader version, the Dual Sport, this time using the full length Beetle floorpan and with the capability of hosting some serious horsepower (see below).
There's a thriving club too, which the Meyers set up a decade ago and are only now handing over to the club members. Like many men who have lived such long and full lives, Bruce's replies to questions seem to go off on so many tangents that you're never quite sure if you've got the answer you're looking for. But what you always get is worth listening to.
Stories of being attacked by Kamikaze fighters while posted on an aircraft carrier during World War II, of helping design Malcolm Bricklin's futuristic SV-1 sports car and of the Manx's top five success at Pikes Peak, beating Corvettes and Cobras.
Fortunately I get plenty of time to listen because Bruce and his wife Winnie insist I stay at their house when we visit for the shoot. Long live small car businesses.
These are nice people. I can't imagine jetting off to Detroit to talk to Bob Lutz about GM and staying in his garage, but that's exactly what I do at the Meyers' home in Valley Centre, north of San Diego.
I sleep on the mezzanine level above his Honda Jazz and the next morning accompany Bruce down to the beach at San Onofre where he's come every Wednesday for 10 years to sing and play guitar with a group that includes a 100-year-old ukelele player and an incredible guitarist who played with Sammy Davis Jr.
Back at the modest home that is the world headquarters of Meyers Manx, Winnie is toiling away in a small office handling the workings of the club and business. Every conceivable square inch of space is covered with a photograph, a trophy, a magazine cover or model reminding of the Manx's place in popular culture.
Across the yard is what you'd probably call the showroom, home to Old Red, the original Manx, and the new Manxster, and even more memorabilia.
Beyond are further buildings including a spray booth and the plug for the final Manx, probably to be called Kick Out after a surfing term, while numerous buggies and Beetle chassis in various stages of completion punctuate the plot.
Strangely, for a man who now makes a living out of something for which he was famous decades ago, Meyers isn't the type to look back misty-eyed. I ask if he's proud of what he's achieved and he genuinely doesn't seem bothered.
But there's pride in his voice when he tells me about the kids he believes were kept off the streets by countless nights spent turning worn-out rusty Beetles into Manxes with their dads.
That's happening less and less these days. The buyers tend to be of an age that remember the Manx from its first iteration and global economy woes have reduced the number of orders.
Once the Kick Out has sold out, Meyers says that's it. But I don't know. Maybe the future won't involve buggies, but I'll bet he's got a few more creative waves to catch yet.
Driving the new Manxster Wind-in-the-hair thrills
Old Red, Meyer's original buggy beat the bikes at Baja with less than 50bhp. You can still have a proper air-cooled Meyers, but the new Manxster has nearer to 250bhp courtesy of a blown Impreza lump, which looks glorious dangling out the back. It's noisy, but with its unique exhaust it doesn't sound anything like an Impreza.
It goes like one though, despite the four-speed Beetle gearbox being too short of ratios to make the most of the power. It's been clocked at 4.2sec to 60mph, a feat helped by 850kg weight. At that speed it's amazing how little air disturbance there is from the doorless sides. Do the same in a Caterham and your eyeballs will be begging for mercy in under a minute. Sadly we don't get to jump any dunes, but we do get lots of smiles and waves.
Dynamically the Manxster is always going to be hamstrung by its Bug chassis. As in the 1960s, you buy the basic kit from Bruce and mate it with your donor Beetle. The end result is up to your wallet and patience, but reckon on building a Subaru-powered car for around €19,000.
Engine:2457cc 16v flat 4cyl, 250bhp
Transmission:Four-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Performance:4.2sec 0-100km/h
See www.meyersmanx.com for details