1967 Meyers Towed Dune Buggy

Bruce F. Meyers built his first dune buggy starting in late 1963 using a shortened Volkswagen Beetle floor pan, a fiberglass 'shell,' and some Chevrolet parts to re-work the rear suspension. And he called it the Manx after the tail-less, 'short wheelbase' cat breed found on the Isle of Man, Bruce was a 'surfer type' living in Newport Beach, California. His engineering was sound, and that street-legal first buggy, named 'Old Red,' held together. It started both a business and a cultural movement. To the extent that he built many more, was copied exhaustively, and the demand for Beetle floor pans has never diminished. Today, the Max and Manx-like vehicles are available, some with Subaru power.

This is the first 'Tow'd,' the Meyer's open-wheel desert race car. It wasn't street-legal, so it had to be towed to the start line. Hence Tow'd. Meyers ultimately built about 1,000 Tow'ds. A Tow'd ran in the 1967 Mint 400, a scorching 600 miles from The Mint-Hotel in Las Vegas to the Sahara Hotel in Lake Tahoe, California. Dune buggies soon after began an integral part of desert racing associated with some of the biggest races across the globe such as the Baja 1000. A 1960 icon, its style and cost of construction was such that pretty much anyone with an ounce of mechanical aptitude could 'have a go' at building and racing one.