I fell in love with the Meyers Manx while I was in high school and always wanted to build one. In 1996 I came across a very beat up 1973 Beetle and got it for nothing! 

After several months staring at it sitting in the back yard, the body was ready to come off. The old adage of a case of beer and 4 of your best friends is true. Aside from the guy on the right rear losing his grip and the body taking out a section of the neighbor’s fence it was a successful operation.

Once back in the garage I went about the business of rebuilding the suspension. New brakes, wheel cylinders, brake lines, etc. all the way around.

I wanted to use Fiero seats and after a long wait a pair finally showed up in the want ads. They had been recently recovered with marine vinyl as part of a restoration. Unfortunately the guy’s daughter totaled the restored Fiero, no one got hurt, but about all that survived from the car were the seats. I then happened upon an ad for an early Manx body in the want ads. I talked Susan into going to look at it. Man was it rough. It looked like the guy who owned it had a love affair with a sabre saw and drill! But it was an early Manx body!

I sanded and filled and sanded and filled for quite a while. I took some vacation time over a 4^th of July holiday one year to build and glass in my mods to the rear section. I also ‘glassed and filled in a number of places on the body that were in trouble. The hood was unsalvageable. Luckily Bruce Meyers, was about to release a replacement Manx hood with dash.

From the projects beginning I had been collecting an array of gauges, VDO oil pressure, fuel and volts as well as a rebuilt VW speedo from BFY. I drilled the blank dash using my dad’s Shop Smith drill press. I used a combination of the wiring diagram in the Manx archives as well as my own concoction. I used 14 gauge 3 wire outdoor extension cord for the running lights and 14 or 16 gauge for just about everything else. Darn if it didn’t actually work once I got power to it. I did have the turn signals backward but hey, the other guy should know where I’m going right? Yes, I fixed it

I took the body to Zig Eble at Autowerks for paint. He shot it in a 1995 Honda DelSol green with heavy metallic flake. Looks pretty good considering the buggy was going to be red, then yellow, then purple…..green works. After all the original color was a light green metal flake. Got the body back and started piecing things together. 2 friends and some more beer were used to get the body bolted down; it’s actually looking like a car now!

The body is bolted down, the windshield is in place now I need wheels and does the engine run? I picked up my Cragar S/S rims and had the tires mounted up. Now the engine hasn’t run in about 11 years, (it sat for a while before I got it) will it run now? I set the valves, put in a Pertronix kit, new plugs and wires. I didn’t want to start it with a full tank of gas, not in the garage so I put a couple of tablespoons of gas in the carb. Somehow the phrase ”fire it up” was a bit scary!  The engine rumbled briefly to life after about 6 cranks! Lots of smoke but no fire! It took a couple of weeks to get around to brake bleeding Saturday. Bill has a one-man brake bleeder he uses on his Kawasaki. This ought to be easy and quick right? Wrong.  One of the wheel cylinders was bad and the bleeder wouldn’t seal on a couple of the bleed nipples. The old Coke bottle and some plastic hose did the trick though.