History Barris T-Buggy Molds found! Info needed!

So my buddy drives by this old building and spies these "things" sitting out side. Stops and the guy tells him that he's "a day late."

The shop closed down 30 years ago, he bought the property and has been cleaning it out to store his airplane and some other stuff.

Says they used to make these dunebuggies or something and has these that are too big to chuck. He says that the big, BFI roll-back dumpster left YESTERDAY with all of the smaller things that they could pick up and throw away. Hoods, side panels, trim stuff.... says it was full of crap.

My buddy ends up with what is left....

Apparently they had these "Barris Sport Centers" in the late '60's and closed them in '71. They were scattered about the country and made dunebuggies. People had to go to a Barris Training course or whatever.... we are not sure if the building was one of those, or just the remnants of what somebody still had, but here's what we got:



About 50 of these flyers....





A complete, unmounted Fun Buggy body, and the rear mold..







Going by the rounded fenders, this is a mold for the C-Cab delivery truck, and it has a red metalflake body still in it, unhatched.







The square fenders make this a T-buggy mold, and again, it has a body unhatched and still in it...

They both have small bumps near the gas tank to clear an early, link pin front axle and require shortened pans...

I'm wondering if anyone has any hoods or tops or side panels that we could pop another mold from and make a few of these? How cool would it be to drive the Fun Buggy???

Also got this cool old picture:



Anybody have any info on these or a lead to any more parts?

 

freakin cool!

 

Damn shame that all the other pieces went in the dumpster. But the major body moulds are all you'd really need if you were ambitious enough to build more.

The silver flake "fun buggy" is pretty badass looking, I could see that one done up full-tilt show car style.

 

Wow, Pretty cool find. Maybe you should head out to the landfill to recover the small parts before they're buried.
The way Barris is, I'd bet dollars to donuts that if he gets wind of this he'll claim ownership of the molds or demand a cut from every body you pop out of the molds...once he licenses you to be a dealer.

 

Yeah... I was wondering about that with him. I just want to build one, not start a fiberglass shop. Too itchy for me... LOL....

We are calling the dumpster people in the morning to see what has become of the load... maybe somebody saw the stuff and didn't chuck it all... who knows.

Anyone ever visit a Barris Sport Center? I'd like to know more about those....

 

Nice score...what are his plans? Barris knew/knows how to make the benjamins

 

Check out the dunebuggyarchives.com for more on dunebuggies.
Here is what I found--seems this may have been a dealer--jump to the middle for the info
http://www.dunebuggyarchives.com/forum/topic_show.pl?pid=8133;hl=barris%20t-buggy#pid8133
But I'd like to know what kind of vintage VW stuff was turfed!! Yeah maybe you can find out where the dumpster went!!!!!!!!

 

Agreed, ttoo bad he doesn't know how to make a decent looking automobile.

That said, it is cool these mold are being saved. I cant believe in this day and age some idiot would scrap that shit and not look into its past or marketability?!Q?!?!?!??!?!

 

I found this one in a field a while back, they said they would probably sale it but i've got enough junk sitting around and they didnt know what they wanted for it.

 

I'd try and track down where the dumpster went. Tell them someone lost a wedding ring in it if you have to. But there's only so many places something like that can go, especially in this day and age of recycling.

 

Thats a cute dune buggy! .........sorry.

 

man i want a fun buggy, that would be so...fun!

 

Was he going to market those buggies down in the middle east? It looks like a toy for a saudi arabian oil sheik

hope you find the parts that were thrown away!

 

god those are uglyer than me

 

Cool find but kinda makes me glad I don't remember that decade.

 

A local shop near me made fiberglass dune buggies, VW trikes etc for various companies back in the late 60's to late 70's. The shop near me was just the manufacturer but not the seller. If a company say out in CA sold a buggy body to a guy in PA they would have the guy near me make it and ship it to PA. Saved lot's of freight and also he made fiberglass parts for other fiberglass companies when they could not keep up wth demand.

He still has origial molds for the Meyers Manx dune buggies. He has thousands of mold's upstairs in his loft for hood scoops, fenders etc,

 

Heres a pic of one of the "Fun Buggy's" in storage in France.
These were used on the 60's TV show "The Buggaloos"


Heres one of the "Barris T Buggy" vans as it appeared on EvilBay a couple of years ago.


AMT/Ertl/RC2 re-released the 60's MPC model kit of the T Buggy about 4 years ago.

Don Evans,who was the editor of Hot Rod magazine,drove a T Buggy in the early 70's. It's on the cover of the Sept. 1970 issue. It is almost identical to the blue one pictured on the flyer.

Cheers,PJ

 

Post this on www.thesamba.com you'll find everything you need there. It's the largest VW and related web site around. There are a few builders there that can probably help with some parts. As well I beleive oldbug.com may have restored one a few years ago.

 

How much for the rear disc setup off of the Caddy? seriously

 

Any luck with the dumpster diving???

 

I'd talk to the employees at the dump site...show pictures, offer a reward for each lump of body or mold recovered.

 

For more info, besides the Samba as Geoff (gkafer) said, you can go to the dune buggy archives, that's the website but I think there is a hyphen in there somewhere, so you'll have to google it, but they will have any and all info on that, and every other dune buggy made in the US. In their heyday, there was TONS of those glass buggies being made, some famous (Dean Jeffries' Coyote, Berry Mini-T, Meyers Manx, EMPI Sportster, etc etc) and some backyard builders, that only made one or two

 

Dude, I think those calipers are available aftermarket now. And I think they even redesigned them so you don't have to rebuild the park brake mechs. every year or two. I wish I can remember where I saw them. I remember seeing them and saying "why would anyone want those!" I worked for caddy for years. I made a lot of $$$ rebuilding those things.

 

what a cool find....just think a few days earlier and the guy might have paid you to take that "junk"....LOL I always liked the looks of a "C" cab, never saw one as a dune buggy before.

 

Those things don't weather well do they. Looks alot better in the brochure than the one sitting in the field.

Still a cool find for a freebee dumpster dive. I wonder how many of these were actually made? I've never seen one but see tons of Meyers Manx buggies still going.

 

Well, we called the dumpster company and it was being dumped while we were hauling the molds home and they backfill over the incoming stuff pretty quickly, so it is all gone....

So sad...

 

I was going to mention the "Bugaloo's" car that Pontiac Jack just showed. There was a super cool one of these based on the Fun Buggy for sale on eBay a few years ago.

It was as cool as all get out.

 

Sad? Get a shovel...

 

I'd go back to find out where they dumped it at...my father & I did that once to find some old flathead speed parts that accidently got tossed. We spent all day there basically and you would be surprised at the car stuff that people toss.