But of Course In my town is a cut down 40 Ford. I finally was able to talk to the owner, well the current owner as it was built by his Grandfather. It seems that sometime in the life of their 40 Ford it was badly rear-ended. Now the slight difference is that this is/was citrus country so it became a field car. They shortened the frame and drive shaft, cut down the cowl to just firewall and dash, the flathead was exposed with the deluxe grill and radiator out front. For a seat they had built what would best compared to a diner booth, all plywood with curving sided to hold in upholstery and passengers. I have not seen it for awhile, but there is another vehicle used as yard art, I will shoot tonight and post later, it is based on a 28 model A
Short wheelbase cut up Fords were all over the California dunes in Santa Maria and Pismo area in the 50s/60s... long before the VW versions showed up.
I love seeing this stuff. Might be a good future project. I live in Yuma. This has been posted before I think, but it is cool. http://www.bob2000.com/dunebug.htm
In the early-mid 60's, the Oregon coast dunes were full of similar cars, by then most were 50's cars, shortened, bodies cut off. 50's cars could be had for 25 bucks in running condition!
I remember an article, probably written a little later, that included some shortened souped up tri-five Chevys. Cool then, maybe not cool now!!
They built em like that up in the Panhandle of Texas to run the the river beds and hunt out of. Many had cabs because of the brush. That is why I built a bobber truck cause many of them were street legal and a few in the high school parking lot. Just took their design and hotrodded it some. I had one with a Flathead and implement tires. They were everywhere up there in the 50's through the 70's
J-B, You hit the nail on the head with this post. Fortunately I am OLD enough to remember vehicles similar to these being shown in car magazines during the late 50's and early 60's. Thanks to a couple of older cousins, I was able to enjoy hand-me-down magazines and absorbed everything my skull case could handle before age of 13 in 1960. Good to know that I am not the only "Old Fart" on this site........... Jeff
Very rarely are we the first to do anything..... 1934 Ford Dune Scooter I wouldn't call these "Dune Buggies" but they were designed by the factory to traverse the desert oil fields of Africa and the Middle East. Not many were made, but they were good in the sand, at least to some extent. Go to the link ans see Studebaker's factory Sand Cars and Trucks.
1 guy... 5 girls...if that isn't a sales pitch, I don't know what is?! Where are those ladies now?! PLEASE chime in.... if anyone knows their whereabouts!!! I mean... no one ever asks about the lady's perspective of the vintage photos... I'd love to hear what they were thinking in this photo!!!
Posted this before, but here's a mid-'60s shot of what looks like a Studebaker V8-powered dune buggy - can anyone ID that chassis and front end?
You know, this sport is so much better than roundy-round racing. After all, the cars can be altered to whatever the next style comes down the pike. Not so with roundy-round cars. They are literally demolished from contact with other racers, walls, or being flipped.
After seeing this pic of the '34 Dune Scooter, maybe I spoke too soon. This guy probably graduated to circle-track racing.
http://www.macwoodsdunerides.com/content.php?page=6 Mac Wood was a very interesting character. He was always thinking of new ways to do things. When he was the operator of Flora-Dale Resort, he would have to come up with interesting ways to entertain the guests, and the Dune Scooter Ride was one of these ventures. These rides started in 1930. It was entertainment for Mac and the family at first. However, neighbors and persons passing by were so interested in his discovery that they talked Mac into making dune scootering a business. Building a business on the unlikely foundation of shifting sands, then stocking it with what first appeared to be some motely remains from an auto graveyard, may seem like a pretty risky venture. But just such unlikely ingredients are the basis for a very successful business and one of Michigan's leading tourist attractions. The first Dune Scooter was designed from a Model A Ford and carried 4 passengers. The huge sum of twenty five cents was charged for this exciting ride. Today we use a 4 wheel drive modified vehicle with 4 aircraft tires to carry about 20 persons per ride.Thousands of people ride each season! We now have a museum setup with a 1934 Ford Scooter and a 1960 Studebaker Scooter and old pictures and signs.
I would love to see a picture of that '60 Studebaker in action. I did an image search and found pictures of it in the museum but not out in the dunes. I did come up with this however, proving again that nobody's ever the first, including posting on the H.A..M.B. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/duallys-on-a-hot-rod.936779/
My 26 has a assigned VIN issued by the CHP in Barstow Calif. It was titled as a dune buggy. It has a coupe body that was shortened behind the doors and the top cut off.
I've run in to a few old field trucks in my travels around the Midwest. It kind of makes me wonder if they had a secondary purpose now.
Check this out. Given the era, not to far OT...http://leelanau.com/sleeping-bear-dune-rides-remembering-the-dunesmobiles/
Great write up @Jive-Bomber! Being that all of the gentlemen in the article are from Yuma and myself being a former Yuman, I shared this topic and article on a Yuma Facebook Group(You are probably from Yuma, AZ if...). Typically a lot of cool historical stuff pops up on this group. The article had a good response from a lot of people. Some good stories were shared and a few pictures. One of the responses even came from Ray Corder's(referenced as being a fill station owner in the article) granddaughter! I looked up his obituary and he was credited as building the first successful dune buggy. He passed away in 2008. http://www.wattsfuneralhome.com/memsol.cgi?user_id=20585 Somebody else also mentioned that their grandfather built a similar dune buggy with his buddies and they would drive it down to El Golfo, Mexico (on the Gulf of Santa Clara - south of Yuma) using the railroad tracks! Checkout how worn those tires are! That would've been quite the task just to stay on the tracks! Somebody else mentioned, "Around 1967 a high school buddy's father bought a more modern version from a mechanic in Yuma that built them on the side. He would take a car (seemed to like GM products) from the mid '50 (usually a two door model) and first shortened the frame (basically cut out the rear seat section (shortening the body to match). All glass except the windshield was removed. He would then remove the front clip and built a radiator surround. Just the center of the hood was kept to go between the firewall and the new radiator housing. He put cycle style fenders over the front wheels. Rear of the body stayed stock with enlarged wheel openings. For tires most of them used farm implement tires and re-grooved them to scoop the sand. Machine shops back then would cut the metal wheel rim in half on a lathe and then weld in a new cylindrical section to make a wider rim. He built quite a lot of these and several were owned by the volunteer Search and Rescue of that era. They drove together in the Rodeo parades of the '60s. -- Soon after the much lighter and easy to build VW Beetle dune buggy's began to appear and replace these bulky American based bugs" Picacho - 1967 (a few miles northwest of Yuma) This write up reminded me of another Jalopy Journal post that @Ryan did in 2010, "Stuck in the Muck". That Rod & Custom article was also written by Spence Murray, about getting stuck in Mexico(in what was to be the Dream Truck?) and being rescued by some of his buddies from Yuma. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/?p=8286 Many of these appear to be the same cars and I assume the same group. Any idea what issue this was in? Does anybody have a copy of it with the text?
What a great thread, and not off topic at all. Even earlier, explorers, scientists, and perhaps a few spies were using modified brand new Ford Model Ts and Model As to travel deep into the North African desert. My favorite might be the British army officer and scientist, Ralph Bagnold. There's a good summary of his life on the USDA website, with truly cool pictures of his modified Fords. There was nowhere he wouldn't attempt to go in one of his vehicles. They might not be 'hot rods,' but he gives new meaning (and risk) to completing a 'reliability run'!
Agreed. Good thread. 100% appropriate. Unfortunately, the term dune buggy is too often incorrectly credited with Bruce Meyers's creation the Meyers Manx in 1964. Bruce will tell you himself that he created the first fiberglass dune buggy but not the first dune buggy. It is easy to understand why. Bruce's creation brought the buggy to the masses via a cool/unique design, a turn-key kit, and more diverse functionality: both street, sand, and off-road use. Because it became an automotive/pop icon in the late '60s to early '70s, it gets "dune buggy" credit. In terms of VW buggies, the stripped down VW "pan" cars predated Bruce's Manx and the "water pumper" buggies were prior to VW powered buggies. The hot rod magazines of the 1950s clearly show that the buggies with water cooled engines were before VW powered buggies. The "Dune Bugs" article mentioned above in the October 1954 issue of Rod & Custom is one proof point. Eric Rickman also shot those early buggies for Hot Rod magazine. In fact, the hot rod magazines covered the dune buggy scene well before the dune buggy magazines were published in the late 1960s. Also Four Wheeler magazine covered dune buggies dating back to the early 1960s. Stepping back, the dune buggy from the 1940s through the 1960s embodied the hot rod spirit: get weight off the car and improve performance all through creativity, ingenuity, experimentation, parts from here and there, and do it yourself/do it with friends builds. Also, rear-engined sand dragsters were pounding the sand well before Don Garlits' innovation. Sand continues to be one of the last places in motorsports where you can build what you want and run as fast as you want with relatively few restrictions compared to street, strip, and other tracks. The history of the old buggies is fading away like the photos of the past. One of the best online collections of old school buggies and their evolution can be found at the following link: https://www.facebook.com/Old-School-Dune-Buggies-and-Sand-Rails-229443403847250/
Here's a great opportunity to buy a little piece of well preserved history. There's not too many of these early "dune bugs" left. I would've bought it already if I still lived down there. https://sandiego.craigslist.org/nsd/cto/d/1940s-hand-built-real-retro/6733362616.html
The Jalopy Journal
