Bruce Meyers was hanging out at Pismo Beach on California’s Central Coast one afternoon in 1963 when he saw something that both blew his mind and changed his life: a handful of old, stripped-down cars bouncing across the sand.
It sure would be fun to get behind the wheel of one of those, Meyers thought, if only they were not so ugly and did not appear so uncomfortable.
He built his own solution: A “dune buggy” fashioned out of lightweight fiberglass mounted on four oversized tires with two bug-eyed-looking headlights and a blindingly bright paint job.
The result would become both an overnight automotive sensation and one of the talismans of California surf culture, especially when he created a space in the back to accommodate a surfboard.
He called the vehicle the Meyers Manx and it turned the friendly, soft-spoken Meyers into a revered figure among off-roaders, surfers and car enthusiasts of all types.
Meyers died on Friday last week at his San Diego-area home, his wife, Winnie Meyers, told reporters on Friday. He was 94.
Bruce Meyers built thousands of dune buggies in his lifetime, but he did far more. He designed boats and surfboards, worked as a commercial artist and a lifeguard, traveled the world surfing and sailing, built a trading post in Tahiti and even survived a World War II Japanese kamikaze attack on his navy aircraft carrier the USS Bunker Hill.
“He had a life that nobody else has ever lived,” his wife said with a chuckle.
Bruce Franklin Meyers was born on March 12, 1926, in Los Angeles, the son of a businessman and mechanic who set up automobile dealerships for his friend Henry Ford.
Growing up near such popular Southern California surfing spots as Newport, Hermosa and Manhattan beaches, it was wave riding, not cars, that initially captivated Bruce Meyers, who liked to refer to himself as an original beach bum.
He dropped out of high school and enlisted in the US Navy and was aboard the Bunker Hill when it was attacked near Okinawa, Japan, on May 11, 1945. As fire raged aboard the ship, he jumped overboard, at one point handed his life preserver to someone who needed it more, and helped rescue others.
Later, he returned to the ship and helped remove the bodies of the nearly 400 sailors killed, his wife said.
After the war he served in the Merchant Marine and attended the Chouinard Art Institute, now part of the California Institute of the Arts.
He also designed and built boats, learning to shape lightweight, but sturdy fiberglass.
That experience gave him skills he would put to use in building the first dune buggies.
He built his first 12 mainly for himself and friends, and decades later was still driving No. 1, which he named Old Red.
In all, B.F. Meyers & Co built more than 6,000 Meyers Manx dune buggies.
Although he trademarked the design, it was easy to borrow from it, and deep-pocketed competitors sold more than 250,000 copycats.
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