In 1964, US-American Bruce Meyers assembled the first dune buggy: Handmade, open to the elements - without doors or roof – and based on a shortened Beetle chassis. He was seeking an alternative to the heavy four-wheel jeeps, in order to move faster through the Californian dunes. The first buggy, the “Meyers Manx”, was born. In 1967, he proved on the Mexican peninsula “Baja California”, that he had indeed created a real alternative. He set a new record time, racing through the desert from Tijuana to La Paz, in his first Monocoque-Manx. Quickly, the fun car conquered the beaches of the American coast and became a cult-classic car of the 70s. Up until the 1980s, around 250,000 individual Beetle-based vehicles were built worldwide – as one-offs or at low volumes: From the Beetle Cabriolet to special bodies from companies such as Hebmüller and Rometsch, and the famous, completely open Meyers-Manx Buggy.
Return of a legend
Elvis, James Bond and Steve McQueen, they all drove it: The dune buggy of the 1970s. The cult-classic car returns – this time all-electric. The new MEB-based Volkswagen study is celebrating its premiere at the Geneva International Motor Show.
“The modern, non-retro interpretation of a classic”
The legend is set to be revived: The study of the ID. Buggy will be celebrating its premiere at the 89th International Motor Show in Geneva. The conceptional approach is based on the famous historical models from California: While they were rolling on Beetle chassis, the Modular Electric Toolkit (MEB), a platform developed specifically for electric vehicles, proves to be just as flexible.
The authentic reinterpretation of the original has been achieved without a fixed roof and classic doors. In addition, freestanding wheels with off-road tyres and open side skirts dominate the overall impression.
“A buggy is more than a car. It’s an attitude towards life. This is notably embodied in the new ID. Buggy: It visualises a modern, non-retro interpretation of such a classic and, most of all, that electric mobility can be very emotional,” states Klaus Bischoff, Head of Design at Volkswagen.
The new MEB concept proves, that this fully electric platform can be of use for more than large-scale series production models. The Modular Electric Toolkit has the potential, just as the Beetle-chassis did at the time, to customise low-series vehicles, making them able to find the light of day - demonstrating once again, that „e“ also stands for emotion.
