The Meyers Manx “Old Red” Kit: Build Your Own Dune Buggy At Home

This is the new, and limited edition, Meyers Manx Old Red dune buggy kit – one of the most famous shapes in automotive history, and certainly the most iconic car ever made by a low-volume manufacturer.

Meyers Manx offers a series of dune buggy kits that bolt directly onto a shortened VW Beetle floorpan, keeping the running gear and drivetrain intact – vastly simplifying the build process as a result.

Fast Facts – The Meyers Manx Old Red Kit

• The Meyers Manx dune buggy, designed by Bruce Meyers in the 1960s, revolutionized kit car culture. It became famous for its iconic shape and off-road racing success, winning the inaugural 1967 Mexican 1000. The Manx’s unique design allowed for larger wheels, longer suspension travel, and lightweight construction, making it highly capable off-road. Unlike many kit cars, the Manx was an original design and not a replica of something else, greatly contributing to its enduring value.
• The original “Old Red” Meyers Manx was a pioneering design, featuring one of the first load-bearing monocoque composite bodies in automotive history. However, only about a dozen were produced due to high production costs. Meyers then redesigned the buggy to use a shortened VW Beetle floorpan, which simplified production and assembly. This new design became the standard for Meyers Manx kits and spawned an entire industry of copycat fiberglass dune buggies.
• The Meyers Manx company recently introduced a limited edition “Old Red Kit” inspired by the original prototype. Only 24 kits will be produced, each including a remastered body, hood, dashboard, color-matched components, period-correct steering wheel, custom exhaust, and various other parts. The kit is designed to be built on a shortened VW Beetle floorpan, continuing the tradition of the classic Manx design while offering modern updates throughout.
• Despite facing challenges from copycat manufacturers in the past, Meyers Manx has persevered. The company was revived in 2000 by Bruce Meyers himself and continues to operate under new ownership following his passing in 2021. Today, Meyers Manx offers not only classic buggy kits but also new designs, including a 100% electric vehicle and a radial engine model.

The Meyers Manx: A History Speedrun

When Bruce Meyers designed and built the Meyers Manx he couldn’t have known that it would become one of the most recognizable cars of the 20th century, and almost certainly the most famous car design that didn’t come from an established manufacturer.

Above Video: This episode of Jay Leno’s Garage features Bruce Meyers himself discussing the history of the Meyers Manx, and his own fascinating personal history. It also showcases the original “Old Red” dune buggy.

Fiberglass bodied kit cars had first appeared in the late 1940s and into the early 1950s, they offered a way for working class people to build sports cars, they just had to buy a suitable secondhand donor vehicle, remove the heavy steel body, add the lightweight fiberglass body, and then apply whatever performance tweaks they wanted.

What Bruce Meyers did was take this general concept and apply it to the VW Beetle platform to create one of the most capable off-road racing buggies of the era. His unique body design allowed the fitment of larger wheels and tires and longer travel suspension, and the whole package was so lightweight it was able to cover ground at significant speed.

The racing prowess of the car became a global news story when a Manx won the inaugural 1967 Mexican 1000 (the predecessor of the modern Baja 1000), beating a packed field of motorcycles, trucks, 4x4s, and modified cars.

Unlike many of its fiberglass kit car contemporaries the Meyers Manx is not a replica of something else, it was developed from a blank slate with this design and it’s 100% authentic. This may be why the values of the Manx on the secondhand market tend to remain strong over time – unlike replica kit cars.

Sadly the replica car industry would set its sights on the Meyers Manx, cheap copies were made by illegitimate companies across the USA. This ate significantly into the business of Bruce Meyers company and it ended up closing down.

Thankfully this wasn’t the end of the tale – in the year 2000 the company was revived and it began selling authentic Meyers Manx kits once again with Bruce at the helm. Bruce died in 2021 at the age of 94 but not before he sold the company to a carefully handpicked successor. The company is now offering classic Meyers Manx kits, as well as the first ever production Meyers Manx electric vehicle, and the first Manx with a radial engine.

Here we see the late, great Bruce Meyers standing next to his most famous creation. Image courtesy of Meyers Manx.

The “Old Red” Meyers Manx

The Meyers Manx Old Red Kit is a brand new release from the world famous dune buggy company that has been designed in the spirit of the original Old Red, the very first Meyers Manx ever made.

Old Red was designed and built by Bruce Meyers starting in late 1963 in his garage in Newport Beach, California. Interestingly, Old Red was designed as a monocoque fiberglass shell, one of the first cars in history to use a load-bearing monocoque composite body in this way, now the standard design for supercars and hypercars, though they use carbon fiber rather than fiberglass.

As has been said before, fiberglass was the carbon fiber of the 1950s and 1960s, offering strong composite structures that were lightweight, impervious to rust, and ideal for use in automotive applications.

This first Old Red was a prototype in every sense of the word, with Bruce Meyers experimenting as he went, applying the years of previous experience he had designing and building fiberglass catamarans. Once the design was complete it was put into production as a kit car, and sales began thanks to ads in the car magazines of the era.

Ultimately only a dozen or so examples of this early Old Red-design would be made before it became apparently that it was simply too costly to produce, resulting in razor thin margins or even a loss on each sale.

There are few automotive designs more iconic than the Meyers Manx, and there are arguably none more universally loved.

Bruce went back to the drawing board and designed a new dune buggy, this time based on a shortened VW Beetle floorpan but still retaining the external styling of the earlier Old Red design. The benefit of this was that the process of making the kit was faster and less costly, and the process of building it was simpler for the customer.

It would be these Beetle-based Meyers Manx dune buggies that would sell in vast numbers and establish the entire industry surrounding fiberglass dune buggies.

Remarkably, it’s still possible to buy these kits brand new from Meyers Manx today, now updated over their 1960s forebears but very much keeping the styling and spirit of the originals alive.

The Meyers Manx Old Red Kit

The Meyers Manx Old Red kit is the newest release from the company, just 24 will be offered in a strictly limited-edition production run, and the kit can be ordered today.

Each kit includes all the primary parts needed for the build sans the VW Beetle floorpan, including a remastered Old Red body, a remastered Old Red hood, a remastered Old Red dashboard, color-matched headlights, color-matched taillights, a color-matched steering column (shaft not included), a period-correct steering wheel, a custom white ceramic-coated stainless steel Sidewinder exhaust, a color-matched rear license plate holder, front turn signals, gauges and switches, a grab handle, a show bar, the windshield, the body mounting bolts, the two seats, and the removable soft top roof.

This kit comes with all the major parts you need to build your own Old Red Meyers Manx, with the exception of the VW Beetle floorpan and running gear.

The Old Red kit is in production now, and the Meyers Manx online store is offering immediate sales which are ready to pickup at their headquarters in Costa Mesa, California within 2-4 days of your order being placed.

If you’d like to read more about the Meyers Manx Old Red kit or place an order you can visit the store here, it retails for $14,500 USD, and the company also offers shipping if you can’t pick it up in person.

Images courtesy of Meyers Manx