Anybody know the history of the Manx?

Was this a Barris-built car?

Anybody have pictures of it? I searched and found very little here on the HAMB.

 

I might be wrong but as I remember it Dick Dean built the Manx.

 

MEYERS.
You gotta be old to know this shit.
http://www.meyersmanx.com/history.shtml

 

Are you talking about the Meyers Manx?

 

it's a cross between a Norton and a triumph

 

Meyers Manx. Pretty much the Andy's Instant T of Dune buggys at one time. They were everywhere.
http://www.meyersmanx.com/history.shtml

 

Manx Norton? anybody? Best classic racer ever. or perhaps the Isle of Man TT races for the amateur racer.

 

you still see them quite a bit, always make me smile. They were simpler times.

 

Bruce Meyers- I am as proud as I can be to call him a good friend. I used to live right down the hill from him in the 1990's and early 2000's, and saw him often. He is still making fiberglass buggies, back in the late 1990's I actually got to build a Meyers Manx "Signature Series" car, that was pretty much a clone of the original, only bad thing was I had to give it away as part of a magazine contest deal. He currently builds something called a Manxster, a 4 seater, very cool car.
The orange one in the post above, is one of the first 12 Bruce built, called a "Monocoque" car, the torsion assemblies were actually 'glassed into the body. After the 1st 12, though, Bruce began to shorten a VW floorpan. Up until recently, Bruce owned Meyers Manx #4, which he affectionately called "Quatro" for obvious reasons.
# 6 is owned buy a guy in Ohio, I did a feature on the car when I worked for the VW Magazines.
Bruce lost his ass when everybody and their brother started imitating his design, and making them cheaply (not only less expensive, also inferior) and he went to court to try and stop it, citing trademark infringement, spent all his money, and LOST the case. He went bankrupt, and all his molds and etc got auctioned off. He stayed out of the limelight for many years, and pretty much only in the last 15 or so years has he started to design and build buggies again.

Here's a shot of Bruce, taken in 2005, on the right, with Joe Vittone, founder of EMPI, who just passed away last year.
www.manxclub.com will tell you any more that you want to know.

 

Thanks for all this information.

An acquaintence of mine recently said he bought a Barris-built car, previously owned by the CEO of Mattel, that inspired the hot wheels car of the same name. Showed a picture of himself and Mr. Barris with the car. At first I thought the car might be very old (though it looked new) and should be archived here, but that doesn't seem to be the best set of assumptions. It really doesn't matter much. Just wondered. Seems the aura around some of this stuff, maybe more than some of it, hazes the facts.

Thanks for the history, and I greatly respect and appreciate Bruce Meyers' originality and contribution now. Cool little cars. Don't see them anymore out my way, but they were the rage when I was a kid. At least the style was the rage. Funny how I look at them now with a much deeper appreciation, though.

 

Hot Rod magazine came out with a Manx going over a sand dune on it`s cover. One of there top selling issues of all time.

 

Barris built this blue one.

 

Barris did the "Mini Ts"

 

Thanks for the scan.
Appealing lifestyle --- what a classic photograph!

I found a few of the other mini-T shots. Makes the buggy stand-out.


But the pictures I'm looking at look like the classic Meyers Manx. Barris is sitting in the car (within the last few weeks) and has signed the dashboard. Said he hadn't seen the car in a while. Maybe it was a special commission. Interesting.

Wish I was 25 again, waxing one down, assumably near the beach, like in the magazine photo!

 

Thought the "Mini-T" was marketed as a "Berry Mini-T". Did not know Barris was involved with the Berry or the Manx.

Meyers also built the very simple "Toad" and a more complicated VW based vehicle with lift up doors called the Meyers Manx SR.

Ya gotta be old to know this dune buggy stuff by heart.

 

We did a TV show on him a number of years ago... and here is his own history link http://www.meyersmanx.com/history.shtml

California's Gold #3002 - DUNE BUGGY

Back in a Southern California garage in 1963 something amazing was happening. A 37 year old Bruce Meyers was building a car that would that would become an icon, the Meyers Manx... better know as the Dune Buggy. This simple car really springborded "off-road" racing into the huge sport it is today, cutting more than 5 hours of the pervious Baja 1000 record in its 1st try. This in turn caught the eye of Hollywood: Elvis, Lucy & Desi, Scooby-Doo all had to have one.

To quote Road and track from 1976, "The Manx has to rank as one of the most significant and influential cars of all time. It started more fads, attracted more imitators... and was recognized as a genuine sculpture, a piece of art." Join Huell as he gets many smiles per mile with Bruce Meyers, and a bunch of Meyers Manx owners as they trek through the So. Cal. landscape.

Click to Purchase this Video
or call 1-800-266-5727.

 

The Manx Club Official WebsiteOn the Manx Club website you can find information on events, forums, history, becoming a member, Meyers Manx products, and much more. ...
www.manxclub.com/

 

I drove past one of these for 3 months that was forsale for $1200, ran had a cage, everything. Didn't think I wanted/needed it for some reason. Finally decided one day to go buy it, summer was coming up and I thought it would be alot of fun. The guy sold it the day before

 

The Myers Manx is too good looking to be a Barris car.
Same with the Norton motorcycle.

Barris didn't do stuff like that.

 

True Meyers Manx cars command a premium, even more so if they are titled as a Meyers Manx. The 'clones' and other buggies don't hold a candle to the originals. If you can find a running Manx under $5000, you should probably grab it. With a souped-up VW boxer 4cyl, the power-to-weight ratio was amazing. Those little scooters would run away from most muscle cars light-to-light.

dj

 

Aircooled Cool Social Group.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/group.php?groupid=313