Original subtitles

Hi, everybody.

It's Jeff Dunham and Peanut at Dunham Family Motors.

Where you don't just get great prices on great used cars.

- Oh, you mean there's more? - You get family.

- Uh, the-- yeah, no thanks. - Peanut--

Most cars were born in a top-secret,

state-of-the-art R&D facility

surrounded by engineers and executives.

This one?

It came into the world in a garage full of surfboards.

No roof, no doors, no reason not to laugh the whole time.

Just you, a throttle, and God's air conditioning.

It arrived as parts in a box,

and you built it yourself for fun.

This is the story of a man with a vision

and the original dune buggy.

This one, you can get wet.

Our Meyers Manx Dune Buggy. Look at that.

Throughout time, humanity has been obsessed

with getting places using anything but their own two feet.

We've tried all kinds of things.

- Hmm. - Until finally,

the greatest invention of all time--

the automobile. - Hey!

Moron!

These are "The Cars That Drove Us."

Somewhere across the dunes.

A beast with a roar.

A death-defying dream.

This wasn't just a dune buggy.

The Manx wasn't the first dune buggy,

but rarely was the first successful dune buggy.

While Detroit was turning out cars for the masses

to benefit the corporate suits.

This wasn't a car that came off of a factory assembly line.

It was designed by Bruce Meyers.

That's right. Just a flip-flop-wearing,

radical dude in his garage, building a revolution.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Born in 1926, Bruce Meyers grew up

in sun-kissed Newport Beach, California.

- He was a surfer. - Whoo-hoo!

He was a lifeguard.

He was a sailor. He wanted to go sailing.

He was a musician playing guitar at campsites.

- ♪ Your eyes are-- ♪ - That's right.

Pretty much a classic beach bum living--

the quintessential California lifestyle.

And when he wasn't bronzing on the beach...

...racing hot rods is where Bruce learned the mechanics

of custom-built cars. But on his 18th birthday...

A letter came, said, "Greetings."

...a not-so-happy birthday from Uncle Sam.

He went into the Navy during the World War II.

Assigned to the USS Bunker Hill,

patrolling the Pacific.

The ship was kamikazing.

A few get through.

He heads for the Bunker Hill stern.

373 of our crew were killed.

He was very sad about all of that.

It was very difficult.

So I think when he got home, he just wanted to create

something that made people happy.

After the war, he went to art school

at Chouinard, in Los Angeles.

He did create a lot of sketches of women.

He was basically in love with the woman's shape.

One day, Bruce decided to go sand-sailing at Pismo Beach,

and he saw water pumpers in the sand,

and he decided that that was pretty cool.

- They were stripped down. - Stripped way down.

And called water pumpers, because they were built

with water-cooled motors instead of air-cooled motors

from, say a Volkswagen.

The chassis with the seats, engine, and transmission.

He just thought they were ugly.

That's when Bruce had his revelation.

So he began to use his art skills

to draft and design this body.

It was really the perfect blend of utilitarian and fun.

But when it came to Bruce actually building this car.

He didn't have a big investment of money.

He had himself and a guy that he hired

who could make fiberglass.

But this wasn't just any guy.

This was his buddy-- Ted Mangels,

who knew a thing or two about building fun cars.

Ted Mangels, he got a contract from Disney,

to create the original Autopia cars.

Ted could see the attraction in Bruce's design,

lightweight

and curvaceous.

He was thinking about hips and the flow of a body.

Probably most of his thinking had to do about women.

And as for the buggy's round, full-bodied headlights,

well, Bruce took cues from--

Mickey Mouse.

He designed the headlights on top

to look like the Mickey Mouse ears,

See? For the kids.

And then, of course, the fenders are flat,

so you can put a beer on it.

Mm. Not for the kids.

Beers, ears, and rears inspired the first fiberglass body

for Bruce's buggy.

For the chassis, he took a more singular approach.

The chassis was integrated

into the fiberglass like a boat.

It was essentially one solid unit.

The whole thing was like a bathtub.

And in 1964, Bruce came clean with a prototype.

He named it Old Red.

He was driving around Newport Beach with it.

This beautiful flow of a body.

People turned their heads.

They really thought, "Wow, this is something different."

Inevitably, people wanted one.

However--

he wasn't interested in building a corporate empire.

I could never see Bruce going with the traditional

big automaker route. He's too much of a free spirit.

But he decided, "You know what I'm gonna do?

"I'm gonna just create something that was way more affordable,

way more accessible to the common man."

And so, instead of the corporations,

he would put the power into the people's hands.

So it was decided that he would just make it into a kit.

And the business model was simple.

People would order the kit from Bruce.

How to build your own dune buggy.

It would come with a body, hood, dash, and a windshield.

And as for everything else,

you know, like the--

Engine and transmission and all the other parts

that a car needs.

The buyer was on the hook for that stuff.

Take a close look at the engine.

It used parts from a Volkswagen,

which was designed, specifically to be a car

that anybody could wrench on.

Make sure you get a receipt.

Literally ready for the junkyard or ready to be thrown away.

There were tons of parts available.

And the idea was you could do it in a weekend in your garage.

Mother [bleep].

You could say I did it.

But did anybody do it?

Because Bruce managed to sell only 12 kits.

- Yeah. - At $995 a piece.

Yeah. Yeah.

Which is almost 10 grand each,

in today's money.

The kits cost too much to produce,

specifically the fiberglass monocoque.

The whole thing was like a bathtub.

And Bruce was certainly taking a bath.

Bruce Meyer's dune buggy was pricey to manufacture.

The kit needed an overhaul.

There are many steps that must be done quite carefully.

But building a new prototype would cost money.

Surely someone would help Bruce stay afloat.

And as it turns out, that person was--

- Shirley. - That's right.

- Shirley. - That's right.

Uh...

Bruce's wife number four.

That's Shirley, but surely.

There were other wives before.

And there was a couple after, too.

I was wife number six.

So.

Shirley worked for Road & Track in the advertising department.

Two owners of Road & Track magazine were so smitten

by these first 12 cars.

They decided to invest.

With time and financial backing,

Bruce went back to the drawing board

and had a breakthrough.

Bruce realized that it was more practical

and help with cost savings to incorporate the VW chassis.

The one piece monocoque was out,

but you still, of course, had to find your own chassis.

And lo and behold, there,

shivering in its awkward nakedness,

lies the heart of your new dune buggy.

The kit could now be sold

for a more affordable and profitable $495.

Bruce was in business.

Well, almost.

Bruce didn't know what to call his creation,

and the folks at Road & Track were like,

"Oh, don't even worry about it.

We're gonna come up with a name for you."

After a lively boardroom brainstorm--

they come back to Bruce, and they're like, "We got it.

We're gonna call it the Manx."

And he's like, "What's a Manx?"

There's a Manx cat from the Isle of Man.

Kind of got a little bobtail,

like a jaguar.

But smaller and cuter.

Well, at least his engine's purring.

But also, if you look, you can kind of see it, right?

No tail? No problem.

And as for the logo--

this cat is holding a sword.

And excuse my language,

but the cat's balls are hanging out

just like the engine would be hanging out

of the rear of the car.

Wow! Yeah, I've never--

I have never heard that one.

But when an airborne Bruce Meyers

leapt onto the cover of "Hot Rod" magazine in 1966,

say, "Cheese!"

That's the picture that changed his life.

From there, sales just went through the roof.

And apparently, Bruce almost went through the floor.

Son of a [bleep].

But a little back pain was a small price to pay

for the big bump in sales.

They had some 300 orders.

Built for adventure, Bruce set out in his buggy

to one of his favorite playgrounds

the rugged, untamed Baja Peninsula.

In the 1960s, Baja was home to a small tribe

of off-road diehards.

They ran what they called a Baja Run.

They were going down and seeing

how fast you can get from one point to another.

People were doing it and they were timing it.

Unorganized, unsanctioned,

and tried whenever someone got a wild hair,

it could be years between Baja Run attempts.

But in 1962, two guys on two wheels

rode roughly 1,000 miles

and set a record running from Tijuana to La Paz.

39 hours, 42 minutes.

And one night, the biker boys...

Hey, how's it going?

...and the dune buggy dudes

got together and talked some shift.

And they said, "Well, what do you want to do?"

And I said, "Let's do it."

Bruce decided to race Old Red

down Baja with Ted Mangels.

A stock Volkswagen tank is only 10 gallons.

So getting between gas station and gas station was a problem.

We managed to get 65 gallons of gas on the car,

around our legs, between our knees,

behind the seats, were jugs.

Driving 1,000 miles, packed with 65 gallons

of combustible gasoline in the dry desert heat

with cliffs and rocks on all sides in the middle of nowhere.

What could possibly go wrong?

In 1967, Bruce Meyers and Ted Mangels attempted

to beat the record for the fastest Baja Run.

So much that can go wrong.

We broke lots of things.

All the bouncing broke the transmission mount.

Little rocks jammed the suspension.

They broke a brake line.

So they had three-wheel brakes.

Somehow, Bruce, Ted, and Big Red

made it to La Paz--

in 34 hours and 45 minutes.

We beat the bikes by over five hours.

And then the press kit went out--

around the world.

Buggies beats bikes in Baja.

But

nobody knew what any of that was.

It means nothing.

What they needed was something the public

and the press could get their heads around.

That's right.

Turn the ragtag Baja Run

into a bona fide off-road race.

Ed Pearlman, along with Bruce and others,

decide, "Hey, we can start

this National Off-Road Racing Association."

NORRA.

And actually organize

the very first real official Mexican 1,000.

Suddenly...

Meyers Manx won that first race, so I'm a little proud of that.

And in 1968, the Manx was king.

Or at least it transported the king.

You saw Elvis Presley drive it in a movie.

Watch your back.

Then it leapt onto the screen

in "The Thomas Crown Affair."

This time, not by a king, but a McQueen.

People are ordering

these things so fast,

they can barely keep up.

They didn't have enough molds to fill those orders quickly.

Although the Manx does have feline origins.

Now Bruce was trying to outrun different kinds of cats.

Copycats--

were mass-producing dime-store knockoffs.

Over 300 companies.

It was time to summon another creature

to combat the copycats.

The Tow'd.

And hook it onto your Tow'd package and off you go.

So it's not a toad.

It was being Tow'd.

T-O-W-'-D.

Rather than haul it to the desert on a trailer,

the Tow'd had an integrated tow bar that could be hitched

to the back of a vehicle.

But when Bruce entered the Tow'd

in the 1968 Mexican 1000,

tragedy struck in the desert.

He crashed.

About 100 yards later, I'm laying there

in the dirt with broken legs.

Could have easily killed him.

The injury ended Bruce's racing career.

Came together at once. Bruce was hurt.

Copiers had copied the car. Business was starting to tank.

Finally, Bruce had had enough,

and he knew what he had to do.

Sue one of the biggest of the copiers,

which was Lincoln Industries.

But things didn't start out so well.

The judge, he actually fell asleep.

And when he finally woke up,

the judge ruled against Bruce.

The judge declared there was previous art

and threw it all out. And Bruce lost his patent.

The Meyers Manx was a free-for-all.

After the copiers just came out in droves.

Bruce is struggling.

He had a lot of other ideas he thought

maybe would save the company.

So...

It created a vehicle called the Manx SR.

Some people say that the SR stands for Stewart Reed.

My name is Stewart Reed.

Or others say it's Street Roadster.

We work side-by-side in the shop,

creating products intentionally more complex,

not easily plagiarized.

A Bruce saying was, "Let's think diabolic."

Everybody was saying, "Well, Bruce,

what does that mean?"

Bruce had a deliciously diabolical plan.

The parts themselves would tend to shrink

and-- and close up a little, so it would be almost impossible

to make a mold off those parts.

Make it really hard for anybody

to follow in those footsteps.

Stewart is one of the fathers of that scissor-door system.

Uh, the first scissor doors.

So Lamborghini didn't invent those.

Those were a Bruce Meyers and Stewart Reed invention.

But Bruce's sports car in a box was a lot to unpack.

Very complicated, fairly expensive.

And only 200 SRs were ever made.

It just took the wind out of Bruce's sails.

A little bit of him died.

Bruce said,

"That's it. I'm done."

Bruce Meyers and the Meyers Manx

were on the skids.

He decided to leave the company.

And without him, the company didn't last long.

Went into bankruptcy.

But the dune buggy business continues on without him.

Yet for Bruce, there was nowhere to hide.

He couldn't even watch TV in peace.

♪ Wonderbug ♪

It's in television. It's in the cartoons.

That's me.

Everybody loves them.

It really hurt Bruce Meyers.

I mean, he was really crushed by what had happened.

- But then-- - then I came along.

It was a whirlwind romance.

That first night sealed the deal.

That's my story.

I'm sticking to it.

And even though Bruce was clearly

an old romantic at heart.

Bruce was married six times.

But surely--

- Shirley? - No, Winnie.

I was wife number six.

But Winnie was the one,

because Bruce had saved the best for last.

Thank you.

Yet, with this new chapter in his life,

Bruce was still struggling to turn the page on his past.

But it was from the pages of this magazine,

"Super VW,"

publisher Jacky Morel had an idea to write Bruce

a new story.

Jacky had talked him into the Super VW Nationals,

so he invited us to come to France.

And his task was simple.

"Hey, I want you to lead this parade of dune buggies

around the track."

And Bruce looks at the dune buggies--

knockoff, fake ones, copycats.

And he says, "I am not leading those.

They ruined my life. They stole from me."

But then, Bruce saw a sign.

Everywhere he went, people would say...

Aloha.

Aloha in any language is a symbol of friendship,

respect, and gratitude.

"Everybody loves a buggy, and you're the reason

everybody loves a buggy."

His dream had lived on

in the hearts and minds of others.

All of these clever, pretty,

creative buggies were connected to this man.

It was amazing to him, because he thought the world

had forgotten all about him and the car.

And it gave him purpose.

People would say thank you

And he'd say, "For what?"

And they'd say, "For the concept."

They all looked at Bruce as,

"You made this for us."

He was in tears almost the whole time we were there.

And suddenly he began to enjoy the legacy

that he had left behind,

as opposed to getting angry

about what had been taken away from him.

And he would always say, "I may not be rich in money,

but I'm rich in love."

And he always felt the love from across the community.

Bruce forgiving,

really helped him realize that it was all for a reason.

And maybe that was enough reason

for Bruce to get back to work.

The first easiest thing to do was after we started the club.

And the Manx Club opened its doors in 1994.

To today, there's 6,000 plus members.

We decided to start Meyers Manx up again.

Bruce went on to design dune buggies

of all shapes and sizes.

In fact, there were so many,

you couldn't possibly list them all.

There was never too much Manx for Winnie,

or it seems, enough Meyers,

because she was by Bruce's side until the end.

Bruce was 19 years older than me.

When he turned 90, he maybe started to slow down.

But this time, Bruce would do it

with his head held high.

In 2020, he sold Meyers Manx

to Trousdale Ventures.

In 2021, Meyers Manx was developing

the Manx 2.0.

Its first fully electric dune buggy.

His involvement gave our direction meaning

and brought the spirit into the modern era.

But Bruce would never see it completed.

Bruce Meyers passed away on February 19, 2021.

Thinking of Bruce,

he was at my house for dinner the week before he died.

And he stood up and said, "All you guys sitting here

"at the table, friends,

"buggy people,

"ones I love, and it's the love,

"that kept this going,

and it's the love that brought it back."

All of our lives have changed,

because of this man.

The club to us is like a family.

So yeah, even though we knew it was inevitable,

um,

it hurt.

Sorry.

There is so much love with these people.

It has to be that little car.

When you hit the dirt or the sand,

you know Bruce made something special.

You cannot drive this thing and not laugh.

I mean, it-- it-- it does not get much--

much more fun than this.

I want people to have an adventure in life.

My life has been full of adventures.

It's a way of dreaming into the reality.

Dreaming is where something starts,

your hands make it become real, and then you go do it.

And if you fail, so what?

Don't go to your grave without an adventure of some kind.

He hopefully went to his grave

realizing that people really did appreciate what he did.

Car enthusiasts and off-roaders alike

owe Bruce Meyers a huge debt of gratitude,

because man, oh man,

is this car iconic?

And just plain fun.

Everything else is a copy.

Thank him for that.

Thanks, Bruce.