FEATURE – 1968 Meyers Manx
Words: Mike Ryan
Photos: Provided
Not too many cars can be considered timeless in their design. Similarly, few are embraced by the majority of car enthusiasts. The Meyers Manx is such a car. The design is approaching 60 years of age, yet still looks fresh, while even the staunchest Ford and Holden loyalists can find common ground in appreciating the Manx and its fun vibe.
The story of the Meyers Manx is interesting, but not half as interesting as the man who created it. Bruce Meyers was born in Los Angeles, California, on 12 March, 1926. His father was a mechanic who knew Henry Ford and helped establish Ford dealerships in California and other US states, so Bruce was introduced to the auto industry at a young age.
However, it was surfing and the sea that held Meyers’s interest, leading him to drop out of high school and enlist in the US Navy while still a teenager. During World War II, Meyers served on the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill and survived a kamikaze attack that killed hundreds of his shipmates.
After the war, Meyers served in the Merchant Marine for a time and also attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, where he developed artistic talents that he said came from his mother. Turning to boat building, Meyers learned skills in fibreglass construction that he would later apply to dune buggies.
Although Meyers was the first to combine the dune buggy ethos with a fibreglass body, he wasn't a pioneer of the dune buggy concept.
Before the Manx
Prior to the 1960s, what we know as dune buggies were mostly based on war surplus jeeps or old road cars, stripped of their bodies, but still running front-mounted, water-cooled engines. Adopting the rear-mounted air-cooled engine from a Volkswagen was trialled by several individuals, but wasn’t commercialised until Hilder Thompson released the ‘Burro’ in 1960. Utilising the VW running gear in a bespoke tube frame chassis, the Burro's engine position - over the driven rear wheels - aided traction in sand, while the short wheelbase helped with ground clearance.
Some other early units in this space included EMPI with their ‘Sportster’ and a one-off called “Rivets” from Peppertree Automotive. While these used bespoke metal bodies, boatbuilder Ted Mangels (who would later partner with Meyers) built a buggy with a marine plywood body that was appropriately called “Splinters”!
All these units came out of California, like Meyers, who was no doubt influenced by what he saw. He also thought he could do better, so in mid-1964, he combined the air-cooled engine, transmission, suspension and wheels from a VW Beetle with other parts from a Chey and fitted them to a full monocoque fibreglass body. Labelled as the ‘Meyers Manx,’ but unofficially dubbed “Old Red,” this initial design was complex and costly to produce, as well as being illegal for road use. Only 12 were built and sold before Meyers developed a similarly styled Manx body that could be bolted on to a shortened VW Beetle floorpan. This made construction simpler, the price cheaper and enabled the finished article to be legally driven on US roads.
Winning and Losing
B.F. Meyers & Co. was founded in 1965 to produce this second design, but its success was boosted by the original. In 1967, Meyers and Ted Mangels used Old Red to set a new record for the (mostly) off-road run of 950+ miles from Tijuana to La Paz on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula - beating the old record by more than five hours. More timed runs followed, with the National Off Road Racing Association formed in 1967 and the first ‘Mexican 1000’ rally held in the same year. A Meyers Manx won the first edition of this event that’s better known today as the Baja 1000.
While popular in the dunes and deserts of California, the road legality of the second Manx saw it embraced by Americans located far from the coast. Appearances in TV shows, movies and magazines brought the Manx to a much bigger audience, too, meaning B.F. Meyers & Co. struggled to meet demand.
The simplicity of the second, bolt-on body design led to a flood of copies from unscrupulous competitors who cut corners and reduced quality. While 5,280 genuine examples of the Meyers Manx would be built between 1965 and 1971, it’s estimated more than 350,000 illegal replicas were produced. Meyers tried to fight the cloners, both in court and with different, more complex designs like the Tow’d and SR, before giving up and closing the business in 1971. The bitterness over having his design so blatantly stolen – and the courts failure to acknowledge as such – kept Meyers away from anything to do with buggies until the late 1990s.
Manx Redux
After establishing Meyers Manx Inc. in 2000 to design and produce the classic Meyers Manx for the new millennium, Meyers added modern variations with new tech and new features, too. However, these retained the signature body style and rear engine, rear-wheel drive configuration of the original.
A few months before his death in February, 2021, Meyers sold Meyers Manx Inc. to a venture capital company, who renamed the business Meyers Manx LLC and continued production, with recent developments including an electric variant.
As good as the new Manx is, the original still holds a lot of appeal, so when one was recently listed for sale with JUST CARS, we had to find out more…
Leigh’s Long Run Home
The owner of the Meyers Manx featured, Leigh Wissell, purchased the vehicle in March, 2021. With no buggy ownership history prior to this, or even a past connection with VWs, it seems an odd choice. But, like many who own, have owned or want to own a Manx, Leigh liked the look and fun vibe of the stubby, stylish roadster.
“We were looking for an original Manx, but they’re rare as hen’s teeth,” Leigh explained.
Two years’ searching proved fruitless until this example was spotted for sale in South Australia. With the same family in SA for 36 years and residing in the Northern Territory for a period prior to that, the car had a long Australian history, but whether it was assembled here from new or imported as a complete unit and converted to RHD is unknown.
With such a long tenure, it’s no wonder the SA owner was particular about who she sold the Manx to: “She wanted to meet us in person before she’d sell it to us,” Leigh recalled. “She was quite passionate about the buggy.”
That meant Leigh, who lives in outer suburban Melbourne, had to fly to Adelaide to pass scrutiny, after which he inspected the Manx and took it for a test drive – which proved to be much longer than anticipated.
“I ended up driving it from Adelaide to Melbourne – which was pretty interesting,” Leigh laughed. “I was going to put it on a truck, but I was having so fun, I decided to just keep driving!”
Midway through the 10-hour drive, Leigh admits he was questioning the wisdom of that decision, but it all came good – at least until the very end of the drive.
“I got all the way back to Melbourne with no rain, but on the last leg down the Mornington Peninsula, it started raining – I was like a drowned rat!”
Obviously, having driven from Adelaide to Melbourne without any dramas, the Manx was in good nick, but still needed a few things attended to before it could receive a roadworthy certificate and be registered in Victoria. Once this was done, Leigh decided to go further…
Refurb and Respray – the Original Way
Leigh says that, with the cars and motorcycles he’s owned in the past, he loves the restoration process more than the finished result, so was looking forward to getting his teeth stuck into this.
While some buggy builders add turbos, slot in Porsche or Subaru engines and other modern tech, Leigh was determined to protect most of the original Manx look and style - what had appealed to him about the car in the first place: “We wanted to make it all original, old school and in the metalflake paint.”
New wheels would be fitted (in the old Manx style), but the VW 1600 air-cooled engine the car came with was retained, along with its period upgrade parts. The oh-so-60s metalflake paint finish would be replicated and the bare bones interior left mostly untouched.
What should be noted at this point is that Leigh’s new acquisition was a “pre-tag” Manx, meaning it was one of the first 1,500 or so bodies built by B.F. Meyers & Co. before they started affixing body tags with build date, colour and a serial number. This started in early 1968, so Leigh’s Manx is 1968 at the youngest and possibly older. Appropriately, the body sits on a shortened floorpan from a ’68 Beetle.
“Once we knew what we had, I felt more comfortable throwing money at the rebuild,” Leigh explained.
After stripping the car down, Leigh sent the body to Race Paint in Mornington for crack repairs and a repaint in the original Candy Apple Red with orange metalflake. Once complete, chrome trim and bright metal beading was added, along with front and rear mudflaps, tube-style bumpers and new mirrors.
Headlights are Dietz-style freestanding units, in period with what was fitted to many Manxes when new, while the front indicators are more modern and of unknown origin. The tail lights are 1962-67 Beetle, with chromed bezels to pick up on the chrome roll bar and windscreen surround.
Big and Bold
For the wheels, the desired type in a four-stud pattern proved impossible to find here and difficult to source from the US, too, so Leigh, via his tyre supplier, found out about a crew called Tin God Solutions in Yarra Junction. They made a set of 15-inch smoothie rims, which are wrapped in fat BFG tyres – 225/60-15 front and 245/60-15 rear – and finished off with chromed VW hubcaps.
New axle boots, new front and rear shocks and replacement engine mounts followed, with the front brakes upgraded to discs.
Inside the cabin, the front seats were retrimmed by the Australian VW Performance Centre in Croydon South. "They built a rear seat for us, too, as the car didn’t have one,” Leigh explained, adding that his choice of cream vinyl with orange piping was considered daring, but it all came together and really ties the interior to the exterior.
Marine-grade carpeting and aftermarket pedals have been fitted, but the dash, in the great Bruce Meyers tradition, has no “worry gauges,” with just a speedo (with odometer and fuel gauge), engine warning light, wiper and headlight switches. That being said, a USB port has been added as a concession to the modern need for smartphone or GPS unit charging.
Leigh adds that he might change the SAAS steering wheel the Manx came with for an item more in period with the car’s age, but that’s TBC and subject to when it’s sold
Power Plus
A VW 1600 flat four engine - upgraded with an 88mm big bore kit, twin-port heads, a mild cam, 40mm dual-throat EMPI carby, an alternator conversion and dual ‘trombone’ exhausts - was in the Manx when Leigh bought it. He retained all of this, just repairing where needed, like fixing a crack in one of the heads. The carb was rebuilt, too, and a new gasket kit fitted, plus new filters, plugs, plug leads and so on.
"The engine went to Euro Cars in Mornington and the guy there, Calvin, did his apprenticeship on air-cooled VWs, so knew exactly what was needed.”
Following the engine rebuild and some cosmetic additions to the tinware, it was matched to a 4-speed manual transmission out of a 'Super Bug' Beetle. A 200mm heavy-duty clutch was also fitted, while Leigh managed to source a rare Manx knob for the gear shifter.
A stock VW 1600 puts out around 44kW, but the big bore kit, lumpier cam and other add-ons means this engine delivers a good deal more. Leigh’s never put the Manx on a dyno, but says it’ll get up to 120km/h without a struggle – and a little more going downhill!
The Fun One
Unsurprisingly, Leigh says his Manx gets a lot of use in the summer. As he lives near the beach, it’s the perfect car for that.
“It’s just a fun car to drive,” he adds. “You can never be depressed driving a beach buggy!
“The Manx is a timeless design that looks just as good today as it did in the 1960s. And with those air-cooled engines, they just keep going and going and going.”
As it’s primarily been fun summer transportation for the family, Leigh doesn’t enter the Manx in car shows much, but the first time he did, at the Port Nepean Heritage Motor Show last year, it won a trophy for Best Hot Rod.
While some may see buying a Manx as a “phase” for the aging revhead, akin to lusting after a Harley when you’re having a midlife crisis, Leigh puts it this way: “You’re allowed to have a midlife crisis, but no-one said how many you can have. And what better car to have a midlife crisis in than this one!”
For Sale
Rarely do Manx buggies come up for sale here in Australia and even rarer in this condition.
Leigh’s thorough process in restoring and updating this buggy means it’s ready for a Manx purist to enjoy as is, or it can be upgraded with modern gear if the next owner wishes.
As an early “pre-tag” Manx (verified by a Meyers Certificate of Authenticity), this car is more valuable than a later unit and certainly more than a replica. Early, unmolested Manxes have sold for as much as US$100,000, with US$50,000+ being the low range.
One for fun in the sun, this Manx is currently on full Vic registration. Asking price is $99,000 ono.
For more details, click HERE
