This is without doubt one of the few surviving examples of the Manta Ray Seashore Buggy, it’s a MkII variant from 1970 with a design primarily based on the Dean Jeffries Mantaray II Kyote design that was famously used within the 1968 “Monkees” film.
Dean Jeffries is without doubt one of the largely unsung heroes of America’s booming Nineteen Fifties and Sixties automotive customized scene. He’s the man who painted the “Little Bastard” script on James Dean’s Porsche 550 Spyder, he designed a slew of influential vehicles, together with one of many very first Outlaw Porsche 356s.
Quick Information –The Manta Ray Seashore Buggy
- The car proven on this article is a Manta Ray Seashore Buggy, it was made in the UK, its design was intently impressed by the Mantaray II Kyote design penned by Dean Jeffries within the Sixties.
- Each this buggy and the sooner Jeffries design had been impressed by the unique fiberglass seashore buggy – the Meyers Manx, a revolutionary new idea developed by Bruce Meyers within the early Sixties on a shortened VW Beetle floorpan.
- Numerous corporations sprung up later within the Sixties to primarily copy the unique Meyers design, creating a completely new automotive subculture seemingly in a single day. Most of those buggies have now disappeared, way back succumbing to crashes, chassis rust, and normal put on and tear.
- The Manta Ray Seashore Buggy proven right here is presently being supplied on the market out of Sussex in the UK. It seems to be in wonderful form total, with eye-catching Canadian Blue and Sensible Royal Blue customized flake paintwork, Wolfrace slotmags wheels, white diamond sew seats, and hardwood varnished duckboards.
Seashore Buggies: The Origin Of Species
There may be no article written about VW Beetle primarily based seashore buggies that doesn’t give acceptable respect to the man who single-handedly created your complete style – Bruce Meyers.
Above Video: This full size documentary tells the story of the Meyers Manx, the unique fiberglass seashore buggy, and it reveals most of the variations that had been produced.
It nearly looks like Meyers was destined to remodel the world of seashore buggies. As an engineer, a surfer, and a fiberglass yacht builder he had a novel set of skills, and he was in the fitting place on the proper time – Southern California within the early Sixties.
As a surfer it’s no shock that Meyers had an curiosity in seashore buggies, as they allowed fast and quick access to in any other case inaccessible breaks. The primitive nature of the buggies being constructed on the time, the late Nineteen Fifties and early Sixties, should have rankled his inner-engineer and so he got down to construct one thing higher.
His first design was a masterpiece, however it proved too complicated to be reliably mass-produced. It had a fiberglass physique that acted as a monocoque construction, with the engine and entrance/rear suspension bolted straight onto it.
It was nearly definitely one of many first composite monocoque tubs ever utilized in an automotive software, predating the identical method being utilized by many supercar makers by ~40 years.
For his second design Meyers opted for a simplicity-first strategy. He took a VW Beetle floorpan and minimize it right down to shorten the wheelbase. He then developed a fiberglass tub-style physique that bolted on prime.
This design proved perfect because it used the Beetle suspension, brakes, engine, steering, and transmission – all of which remained hooked up to its authentic fixing factors. Beetles had been an inexpensive and simple to supply donor on the time, and so they may very well be modified with uprated suspension, improved engines, and bigger wheels/drained to be used in dunes and on seashores.
The Manta Ray Seashore Buggy Proven Right here
The buggy proven here’s a Manta Ray, one of many numerous emulators of the Meyers design that popped up within the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies. The Manta Ray was developed not in California however in England, surprisingly the fiberglass-bodied seashore buggies of California had change into in style in Britain and throughout Europe, sparking the creation of many native producers.
Very like the Meyers Manx design, most of those different buggy producers used a VW Beetle platform that had been shortened a number of inches. The good thing about the Beetle floorpan is that’s has the suspension, brakes, steering, engine, and transmission all in place – so all it’s good to do it drop a fiberglass physique on prime and also you’re good to go.
Fiberglass has been known as the carbon fiber of its time and in some ways it was, if something it was cheaper and extra approachable than carbon composites, however nonetheless resulted in sturdy, stiff, and light-weight buildings. Even the likes of Ferrari/Pininfarina/Scaglietti dabbled with fiberglass our bodies on vehicles just like the Ferrari 308 GTB “Vetroresina.”
The physique of the Manta Ray was intently impressed by the Dean Jeffries Mantaray II Kyote design talked about within the introduction. This Jeffries-designed buggy was used within the 1968 “Monkees” film which was seen extensively within the UK, and should have led to the formation of the corporate behind the British Manta Rays.
The 1970 Manta Ray proven on this article is a MkII model completed in Canadian Blue and Sensible Royal Blue customized flake paintwork, it has Wolfrace slotmags wheels, white diamond sew seats, and hardwood varnished duckboards.
This buggy seems to be in wonderful situation all through, with Wolfrace slotmags wheels, white diamond sew seats, and hardwood varnished duckboards.Energy is supplied by a 1.3 liter twin port VW engine, an air-cooled flat-four in fact, with twin EMPI 34 ICT carburetors, and a guide 4-speed transmission. The automobile has a entrance disc brake conversion, with rear drums nonetheless in place, the engine has a chrome costume up equipment, and there’s a rear bench seat that may maintain two folks, maybe three in a pinch.
This Manta Ray Seashore Buggy is now being supplied on the market on Automobile & Basic out of Sussex in the UK. For those who’d prefer to learn extra about it or register to bid you possibly can go to the itemizing right here.
Photos courtesy of Automobile & Basic
Articles that Ben has written have been lined on CNN, In style Mechanics, Smithsonian Journal, Street & Observe Journal, the official Pinterest weblog, the official eBay Motors weblog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Journal, Wired Journal, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and lots of extra.
Silodrome was based by Ben again in 2010, within the years for the reason that web site has grown to change into a world chief within the various and classic motoring sector, with nicely over 1,000,000 month-to-month readers from around the globe and lots of tons of of hundreds of followers on social media.
