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The Story of Meyer's Manx #7
The Journey Was Epic, and the Rewards Great

By VW Trends Staff
Photography: Chris Lewis

The history of the Meyers Manx is best expressed by Mr. Bruce Meyers himself. The monocoques were the first generation fiberglass buggies ever built. Really works of art, they encompassed the design curriculum of form follows function, but with a very artistic twist. Amazing in their detail, fit and finish, they remain unparalleled in the fiberglass industry to this very day.

The first three cars had headlights that were angled following the curvature of the hood as well as experimental suspensions. The fourth through 12th had a design change that set the lights upright and parallel with the ground. Additionally, the standard VW rear torsion assembly was used. In all, only 12 of the first generation Manxes were ever made, after which they utilized a shortened VW floorpan.

As far as my car is concerned, somehow by 1970, Number 7 had made it to Ohio where it was purchased by a family for their son to use as a daily driver. In a conversation with them, they had purchased it from a farmer that lived north of Columbus. To their knowledge, from the time that they owned it, it had never been wrecked. So, the vehicle had been damaged sometime between 1965 and 1970. How we know that will be explained further on in the story.

The seats were removed and Mustang seats were added in, but nothing else was done with the car. After three years the car was again sold. This new owner had it for about 20 years, never drove it or worked on it. My friend purchased it and after a trade of a 1971 Beetle that had had a pretty nasty engine fire, the Manx was finally mine.

I had been contemplating purchasing a buggy for some time, and my friend told me of a Meyers Manx that he had for sale. I went with a few friends and looked at it. It was rough, but complete. Wiring faults hindered our starting it, but after a good push, it fired up. I drove it...very gingerly. Brakes that were soft and a tranny mount that was broken caused a great deal of distress. After some time, I decided against buying it. After all, all Manxes are on floorpans, and this one was most definitely not on a pan.

My friend decided that he wanted a beater Bug and knowing that I had the 71, asked if I would sell it. I agreed to sell it for $100. He paid me either 40 or 60 dollars. After about four months, final payment had not been paid so I decided to collect the rest of the money and called him. He offered the buggy as a trade for the remaining payment. So, I got the Manx for 40 or 60 dollars.

The original concept was to build a beater buggy that I could just putt around in during the summer. In March of 1995, an article in VW Trends magazine touting the formation of the Manx Dune Buggy Club caught my attention. A universal search for all Manxes and Manx owners was underway. Although specifically interested in the Meyers Manx, Bruce and Winnie Meyers wanted any and all buggy owners to join in the fun of a worldwide club of like-minded individuals.

I sent Bruce and Winnie a letter describing through pictures and words, the makeup of this buggy. A flip-up front hood, a rear fuel cell integrated in to the body and no VW pan were some of the explanations. The letter received and in the hands of the Meyers prompted a call to me. They were very excited that I had potentially located one of the 12 monocoques, although they wanted to ask several questions to verify its true ilk. After discussing the car with Bruce, it was deemed that indeed it was a monocoque. The next question sealed my intent on restoration. He asked if the car was at all for sale. The answer was definitely a "no."

My good friend Jon Knoll and I decided to fly to California on a whim for the inaugural Manx DBC run; the Squeeze and Drop-Off in the Anza Borrego desert. The day that we left was the day that the Alfred P. Murrah building was bombed in Oklahoma City.

When we arrived in California, we were greeted at the airport by Winnie Meyers and her daughter. We were told that Bruce was working feverishly on Number 4 which was eventually renamed appropriately "Quatro." We were delighted to be helping the master with one of his great creations. We worked for two and a half days straight with Bruce in order to get "Quatro" going and ready for the run.

What we experienced was wonderful for two central Ohians. I will always look back on those days with a smile. Both of us did not want to leave there, but we had responsibilities back in Ohio.

Once back in Ohio, Jon and I really began attacking Number 7 with a vengeance. After removing some undercoating in the front hood area, we found that the front end had some major damage to it. The more layers of glass that had been mounded on top of the injuries, the more obvious it became that trouble was looming. Slowly, the sad fact came to light after many years of being hidden, the front end of the car had been torn off in a pretty massive wreck. This explained why the windshield was incorrect and the front suspension was bent.

The creative owner repaired the car with cardboard, a lot of fiberglass resin, some glass and bondo. the windshield had been replaced with a sheet of clear Plexiglas with square corners! Very un-stylish. I believe that the damage and subsequent repair had taken place prior to 1970 for a number of reasons. First, the owners that I had been able to locate had never wrecked it, the cost of the buggy body itself was about $1000. If damaged, it would be in the interest of the owner to repair it.

It became obvious that the only way to repair the buggy was to take it to California and do the repair work there. Bruce had "Quatro" completed and it could be used to create a mold to repair the nose section. I towed the buggy to California in November of 1996. On my return trip, I was to bring back an SR recently purchased by Jon as well as an SR2 body that I had bought.

With everything loaded in the back of my Chevy S-10 truck and one trailer, I tried out how well it towed. Long story short, I left Jon's SR there. Good thing as well, for it was the most treacherous driving coming back to Ohio that I had ever experienced.

Bruce graciously offered both his car and his expertise to his nephew, Peter Smiley, who did the glass work for me. Bruce' kindness and "Quatro" allowed my car to survive.

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Part II
In 1998, I finally went back to pick up the buggy. This of course was another trip for the record book. A friend of mine was interested in buying a 1967 Karmann Ghia in Tucson, Ariz. He found out that I was going to California to pick up the Manx body and wanted to come along in order to really assess the KG and possibly buy and bring it home. The funny thing was that he decided at work on Thursday at 4:30pm. We left at 6pm that same day. We drove straight through to Tucson. We arrived Friday night at midnight. I intended to drive on through to Valley Center to pick up the body; however I had not slept in 35 hours and the decision was made to have the body brought to us in Tucson.

I called all of my friends in Calif., and finally Jim Guthrie agreed to bring the body to me for a small fee. What a life saver. He arrived on Saturday night; my friend bought the KG, and we hit the road at about 10pm. Cruising back to South Carolina, the KG blew out a tire. With a failing cell phone battery and my Auto Club card at hand, we managed to get the car flatbedded to Meridian, Mississippi, where we got four new tires. We made it back by Monday night.

The first thing was to assess the overall body condition and repairs. Peters work was beyond compare. He is so complete and meticulous that I had very little to do as far as glass work. I began matching up the old hardware with new from various companies. All non VW bolts were replaced with stainless steel hardware. Damaged brackets and braces that were original to the buggy were reproduced by myself.

Knowing that I needed a transmission, front suspension and seat frames, I set out looking for a donor car. My answer came in a pretty well toasted 1964 Baja Bug. The car had sat for years in a field. I stripped the body off and set about removing all of the hardware and items that I needed.

I completely disassembled the front suspension and axle tubes from the transaxle. I sent these out to have them hot tanked. I test fitted the parts back up to the buggy and drilled all necessary mounting holes that had been filled during the glassing process. These were the hardest holes that I have ever drilled.

The front suspension is actually mounted to the fiberglass, and then has a support bracket that is bolted to the backside of it to which a marine grade plywood board attaches. The board runs back from there and is attached to the fiberglass floor of the buggy in four places. This in turn acts as a shock absorber of sorts for the front end. The top shock mounts are bolted through a piece of 2" steel pipe that is swaged down to create a flat mounting point that is drilled out to accept the top most shock bolt. The pipe runs the length of the body and is glassed in for increased rigidity and impact resistance.

Once satisfied with the fit, I sent out the front suspension components for powder coating at Jimmy Cain at Vanguard Industries in Anderson, S.C. He runs the specialty coating facility at Vanguard and he proved to be a valuable resource and great friend.

During that same period, I took my brake drums, backing plates, axle tubes, steering column, seat frames, engine tins, pulleys, roll bar, exhaust.....and so on, to him. Jimmy would inspect each part and did a bang up job on them for me. With the suspension stuff gone, I started attacking the small imperfections in the body. Sanding, filling, sanding, priming became my mantra. Nothing can calm you down more than soothing music and hand sanding.

I primered the body with Slick Sand, a polyester primer that sprays on pretty thick and sands to a smooth finish. If applied too thick or too heavily, it can sag, so be careful. These all have to be sanded out and blocked to assure a good final finish.

I trailered the body to my friends, Hoggy Swillings to paint the body. I applied three coats of HM SOLO Bright Blue. It is a lot more "poppy" than the original Royal Blue, yet is very close to the color. The gloss on that paint was magnificent. This was the most difficult thing that I have ever painted as it is so complex in form. Standard buggies are much easier for the fact that they are open in the center and you can get around them a bit easier. Overspray was a big problem on the monocoque.

Meanwhile, I reassembled the front suspension. Mr. Steven Munsey of Vintage Auto in Greenville, SC drove out my old kingpin bushings and reset the new ones for me. Steve Noxon , also of Vintage Auto, helped me out on the parts end as far as finding good vintage parts as well as new stuff for the buggy. Thanks to them both for their friendship and help.

I reamed the King and link pins in my shop and reassembled the front suspension. I softened the spring loading by removing a few leaves in the torsion springs in the front suspension. This makes for a nice, supple ride. It is very important to do this as once the steel body is done away with on a VW, you have effectively reduced the weight of the car by about 1000 pounds. Hence, the suspension needs to be softened up to achieve the best ride.

During this same period, I also had to seal the fuel tank. After sitting with gasoline in it for so many years, the fiberglass began to break down internally. I knew this by the fact that the gas that I had taken out of the tank had a grayish blue tint to it and actually gummed up my lawnmower motor once when I ran out of gas and needed some to finish the lawn. Believe you me, the crab was a big gumball of grayish sticky matter. No wonders it stopped running.

Regardless, I called all over the country and finally found some fuel tank sealer used for Military jets. This stuff was NASTY smelling. I was told that it was the consistency of oil, however when mixed, it was more like really thick cake frosting. The difference was that it was gray and stank like nothing else.

My girlfriend Lotto has smaller arms than I, so I had her reach inside the fuel tank through the opening and prep the tank surface by scraping and scuffing it with sixty grit sandpaper. What a girl. After that, I had another friend with smaller arms than I did spread this nasty stuff all over the inside of the tank. Thanks Nathan!!! This seems a lot like Tom Sawyer and whitewashing the fence, but believe me, if my arm was not so big, I would have been doing it.

The car slowly began to come together. With the front suspension together, the transmission rebuilt and powder coated and all of this mounted up, it began to look like a car again. Things still missing were seat covers, tires, a windshield, a steering wheel.

I called Sewfine and had them make seat covers using an alabaster white body and Bahama Blue piping. The seat frames were from the 1964 bug, so they made them for that year. Unbeknownst to me, I had a pair of 55-56 seat frames only. When the seat covers came, they did not fit quite right. I got another set of seat frames from my 1959, and they still do not quite fit, but they look cool.

The steering wheel needed to be restored, so I had Butch at Low Rays autobody supply shop in Anderson mix a batch of early interior beige enamel for me. I restored the wheel, repairing cracks and divots and then painted it.

I removed the bezel off of the speedometer and found a speedometer repair shop in Greenville that still had the green and red colored gels for the turn signal, generator and oil light indicators on the face of the speedometer. I replaced these and did an overhaul on the speedometer. It came out really nice. While in there, I turned it back to 0 miles. Not honest, but now I know how many miles I have on it since its rebuild.

The wiring harness began life as a BUGPACK harness. I used the official Meyers Manx wiring harness guide and wired it accordingly. Although not standard, I updated the fuse block to ATO style fuses. To the purist, this is not correct item, and I will change it out someday, however functionally, it adds reliability. I tucked it up and away so that it does not spoil the look of the front luggage compartment.

I was then able to run the harness through heat shrink tubing all the way to the engine bay. There, I split off the various wires. I wire tied the harness to pre-mounted phenolic blocks that I had epoxied to the glass on the underside of the body. This is a great way to keep your harness out of the way as well as handy in case of a problem.

Since the wiring was underway, I needed to find a battery to fit in the small 6 volt hole in the front of the Manx. I searched high and low and ultimately came up with a name, Crischell Automotive. They carry a battery called the Black Panther. This battery is the same footprint as an old 6 volt battery, but it is shorter by about 2 inches. AWESOME. In speaking with them, we determined the correct battery model to use and I forked over the dough. When I received it, it had a steel case around the base of it. I had to remove that, but once removed, it slipped right in to the existing battery hole. The battery itself is a gel cell that is completely sealed. No worries about battery acid or tipping it over. It will never leak unless punctured.

Again, since I wanted the car to appear original, I built a vacuum form plug that mimicked the original steel battery cover used on older bugs. Since the battery posts were not quite the same as the older bug, I had to special make the part. Once formed, I trimmed it to fit and painted it matte black. It looks great, and without really examining it, one would dismiss it as original.

The spare tire also made its home up in the front under the hood. Bruce ingeniously placed two cleats that act as stays to hold the tire from shifting around too much. He also utilized an old leather belt run through 3 footman loops to hold the battery, battery cover, and spare tire in place. Since mine was missing, I went to a leather shop and bought the necessary materials and tools and learned how to make a leather tie down belt. They were very nice at the shop and took about an hour showing me different manners of making the tie down.

The original engine was long gone from the Manx, so I built up a 1600 Dual Port. I had all of the tin powder coated, and ran NOS pistons and cylinders. The case was align bored .010" over with a thrust of .001". New bearings and cam were needed, but the crank came in to perfect specs. I ran a Bosch 009 with Bosch wires and platinum plugs. Aspiration was managed by a new Brosol 34 PICT 3 carb. The exhaust is a sidewinder from BUGPACK with a single quiet pack. I had it powder coated in a silver hot coat material.

With no windshield, I had to ask Bruce again for his help. We discussed many different options and I tried to no avail to find the exact size aluminum extrusion to use. It is important to note that the windshield frame on these monocoques are not like the extruded frames used on pan buggies. The Monocoque frame is simply a U channel that is bent around a mandrel for the upper two radiused corners and has a straight piece of U channel at the bottom that captures the glass.

After about a half of a year trying to find the right extrusion, I finally gave up and bought a similar size. I milled the slot bigger to accept the windshield glass. I then turned a big mandrel to bend the frame around. After about 4 hours of work, I had finally reproduced a windshield that had not been on the car for over 20 years. I took the frame to Kays Glass in Anderson, SC and they fitted the glass to the frame.

The uprights for the folding windshield are also a very interesting case as well. The uprights are on either side of the frame and essentially attach the frame to the rest of the body. They have a pivot hole that allows the frame to fold down so that you can have wind in the face fun.

The uprights had been shortened by about 2 inches by one of the owners along the way. Of course since this is an organic shape, I could not just go about recreating it easily, especially out of cast aluminum . Well, it just so happened that when in California at Bruce's shop while working on #4, Bruce decided that he wanted to reduce the height of his windshield.....by 2 inches. He took a hacksaw and cut off 2 inches of the uprights and tossed them in the trash. I grabbed them up and asked if I could have them. He agreed. When Jon and I cautioned him about cutting parts off of #4, he simply stated," I can do it because I am Bruce Meyers."

Well, after so many years of having those little pieces, I was able to use them. Larry Dunn of Anderson, SC TIG welded the tips back on to my frames uprights. I ground and polished them out. Although one can see the welded spots, I have the correct length uprights now.

I had purchased a set of tires for the Manx, but when I mounted them, they looked WAY wrong. They just were too small. I ended up using Cooper Cobra GTs all the way around. The fronts are P225/70R14s and the rears are 275/60R15s. I am running a set of widened stock rims. 14-7s in the front and 15-8s in the rear. These were made at Custom and Commercial in Fontana, California. I recently had another set made and shipped to me. The total cost was about 400.00, however it is well worth the trouble to have this done. No adapters, no out of round rims, and they look SO cool.

I had the rims powder coated by Vanguard in a beige to match the seat covers frames and steering wheel. The contrast of the beige to the blue is not as dramatic as if they were white, and that is OK by me.

After all of this was done, I had to try the car out. April 24th, 1999 found me up at the garage working away. I was excited to try it out and managed to get the car all ready.

For the first time, I fired the engine up. It sprang to life with great eagerness. I was shivering with anticipation of its first foray in to the world after so many years of neglect and restoration. I backed out of the garage and let it idle in the sun. Bright blue.....dazzling. Sun glinting off of polished aluminum, chrome hubcaps, glinting off of the bright blue paint, the headlight bezels highlighted by sunspots. I got back in the car and took it for a cruise around the storage garages. Many things occurred during this brief drive, none being good. The engine coughed and sputtered. I pushed the throttle to the floor. It still coughed.....then it cleared its throat. I was propelled forward at a good clip. I let up on the throttle to no avail. It had gotten stuck. I reached down to unstick it, but it was too late.

I hit the brakes and they slowly sank to the floor; impeding my progress by nano seconds. I grabbed the e-brake. Although having worked while rolling the car back and forth, it managed no better than the brakes themselves. Time ran out. I had to turn or go through a fence. The turn was manageable.....under normal conditions. This was an abnormal situation. 75% of the turn later ,I managed to catch the storage building with the left front fender and tire. I panicked and stuck my leg out. This of course nearly tore my foot off.

The last thing that I really remember was a paisley couch inside of a crunched storage locker. It seemed OK....no rips or tears...and I wondered why anyone would store something so ugly.

I somehow managed to push the car back to the garage with a completely shattered left ankle. I remember laying on the hood and hopping/pushing with the one leg. Some women were there at the buildings who had a cell phone. I used their phone and called my girlfriend Lotta. Meantime, I called the building owners and I splinted my ankle with stirring sticks and cloth strips torn from a car cover.

15,000 dollars later, I had stainless steel shanks, 15 screws and some irradiated cadaver bones in my leg. I was out of work for about a month and I had time to reflect on what had happened. Ultimately, nothing good happened that day!!! Some say that you cannot take it with you, but I have managed to take more than I entered this earth with.

After about 5 months away from the garage, I was able to stand on my own feet again albeit with a cane and a Bledsoe shoe. I began the torturous assessment of my once proud accomplishment. I had managed to rack the hood , front left and right fenders and crack my restored steering wheel.

I was crushed, however I knew that I had to get back to it.

I sold the engine and I built up the current 40 horsepower unit in the car. Rimco align bored the case for oversize bearings and cam bearings. They also faced the block for the cylinders to fit snug. I again had all of the engine tin powder coated. I purchased a Porsche 356 12V generator off of e-bay that needed rebuilding and rebuilt an old 28PCI carburetor. Building the engine took about 2 months from start to finish because of my hindered movement, but when it was completed, it looked great. The air cleaner is from an early bus, reworked to utilize a round paper filament K&N filter. It looks sharp.

With the engine built and out of the way, I attacked the glass re-work again. This time it took less time, but it was still pretty painful to do all of this work to a finished car. I repainted the damaged areas along with the hood. I finished again by March 2000.

Since March, I have entered 2 shows. I won first place in buggy class at the Sevierville Circle Yer Wagens and a second place win at the Central Ohio Vintage VW show where these photos were shot.

In any restoration, the availability of information is tantamount to a good restoration. Having the builder of the car available for insight in to a vehicle is incredible. There are many nuances about the car that one would never know without the advantage of speaking to the designer. I am forever thankful to both Bruce and Winnie for their encouragement and support during the restoration.

I need to thank a number of folks without whom this would never have happened. Lotta and Shadou Brundin; the two ladies in my life that have put up with my buggy craziness and my not so common manners of injuring myself, Jon Knoll for his friendship and help in the restoration, Peter Smiley who did all of the major glasswork ......BULLY JOB MAN!!!, Jimmy Cain and Vanguard Industries for their powder coating expertise, Rimco and Larry Dunn for their engine work, Hoggy Swilling for the use of his compressor and garage, The Dune Buggy Archives, John Shepard and the Gang, and last but not least, Bruce and Winnie Meyers. What can one say about a visionary, an artist, a philosopher, a friend. Some things are simply beyond words. I think that I speak for the whole VW industry and scene when I say, "Thank you."