2024 Meyers Manx 2.0 Electric: The Original Dune Buggy, Remastered
It's finally happening: The iconic Meyers Manx is being reborn for a third time, now as a pure electric vehicle. No, it's not the ID Buggy concept Volkswagen cruelly teased us with a few years ago before crushing our dreams, it's an all-new model from the original outfit. Meet the Meyers Manx 2.0 Electric.
Real Deal
Lest you think this is another one of those startups that has nothing to do with the original, the EV dune buggy is being produced in California by the Meyers Manx company in partnership with "a U.S.-based manufacturing entity." Manx fans will know that founder Bruce Meyers died in February 2021 at age 94, and a year prior had sold his eponymous company to Trousdale Ventures to ensure its continuation after his passing. Trousdale founder and Meyers Manx chairman Phillip Sarofim hired legendary car designer Freeman Thomas, who penned the Volkswagen New Beetle among other notable projects, to create this next-generation Manx EV.
Thomas' work is refreshingly true to the original while incorporating modern components and working around a wildly different drivetrain. Even so, it likely has more in common with the original Manx than the later models you know. The first Manx featured a custom fiberglass monocoque body with embedded steel mounting points and reinforcements. Too expensive to mass produce, Meyers switched to using a shortened Volkswagen Beetle platform with a fiberglass body after 12 unprofitable cars were built.
Small Battery, Lightweight, And Plenty Of Range
This new model utilizes an aluminum monocoque covered with a body made of an unspecified material. Indeed, a number of technical details are unclear or unannounced at this time. Regardless, hidden somewhere under the retro body work is a choice of two battery packs, one 20 kWh and one 40 kWh. Those are small by EV standards, but unlike a Tesla, the Manx 2.0 Electric only weighs an estimated 1,500 to 1,650 pounds depending on battery size.
Thanks to its low weight, Meyers Manx estimates the buggy will go 150 miles with the small battery and 300 miles with the big battery. A Level 2 (6 kW) onboard charger is standard and DC Fast charging capability is optional, though only at 60 kW. Here again, the stats are unimpressive for a road-going EV, but the Manx 2.0 Electric's batteries are so small they shouldn't take too long to charge even at those speeds. We can't say for sure, though, because the company has not shared charging times.
Regardless of battery size, power will be sent to a pair of electric motors mounted on the rear axle, one driving each rear wheel for precise traction control and torque vectoring. Meyers Manx doesn't have specs on the motors paired with the smaller 40 kWh battery but says that model buggy will hit 60 mph in an estimated 4.5 seconds. Go for the big battery and the motors will put out 202 horsepower and "up to" 240 pound-feet of torque. The company didn't provide a zero-to-60 estimate for that model but it'll certainly be quicker.
Ready To Go Off-Road
Like the original, the Manx 2.0 Electric will feature independent front and rear suspension, but we don't have any details on the design used. Photos indicate a trailing arm front suspension like the original air-cooled Beetles and the original Manx. The rear, however, appears to be a modern multi-link design rather than old swing arm setup. Both look to have plenty of travel as an off-roader should, but the company hasn't provided those specs or official ground clearance.
Unlike the old Beetle-based kit car, this new one features disc brakes all around instead of drums and also adds regenerative braking on the rear axle, not to mention an electric parking brake. Up front, the Manx 2.0 Electric gets electric power steering and even windshield wipers.
In all the most important ways, though, it's true to the original. It's rear-wheel drive, has knobby off-road tires, seats two, and the roof comes off. Inside, the seats appear to be wrapped in a vintage tweed pattern and the minimalist dashboard features a single retro-modern round gauge. The roof appears to be one piece that lifts off the car and gets left in the garage. Like the old days, there are no doors. We hope there's more lockable storage in the front and rear now that there's no engine or gas tank in those spots.
No Price Yet, But You Can Be An Early Adopter
The biggest unanswered question we have is what the price tag will be for this adult-sized beach toy. Meyers Manx says they haven't set one yet, but if you don't care and want to get your name on the list now, reservations will open on the company's website after the car's public debut at The Quail show on Friday, August 19, during Monterey Car Week. Deliveries will begin in 2024.
If you want to be a real early adopter, though, 50 buyers will be selected to participate in a beta program in 2023. In return for special access, you have to agree to provide feedback to the company while they work out the final kinks before full production begins.
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If you've got your heart set on a Bollinger, maybe it's time to start that delivery business you've always dreamed of. Bollinger, the Michigan-based developer of the boxy B1 electric SUV and B2 electric pickup, has announced a change in plans: Production of its consumer trucks will be suspended indefinitely as the company pivots to its commercial business."Even though I love our trucks, we were getting so much interest on the commercial front, it just became a smart business decision," founder and CEO Robert Bollinger told MotorTrend. "We have a lot of fleets coming to us. We have agreements with them in place that we'll talk about later. All of our hard work and all of the patents, all of the expertise we've learned, battery development, thermal management, the battery management system [for] which we wrote our own code, all of our controls, all that we've done up to this point leads us perfectly into commercial."Bollinger's plan is to concentrate on Class 3 to 6 trucks (those with GVWRs ranging from 10,001 to 26,000 pounds—think heavy duty pickups up to two-axle box trucks and school buses), which makes sense given what Bollinger has shown us: Alongside its trucks, Bollinger has developed chassis-cab and dually versions of the B2 electric pickup, along with a bare Class 3 chassis for commercial use."We've been in Class 3 since day one," Bollinger said. "When we started having more and more of the team work on the commercial front, we saw that there was a lot of similarity between [Classes 3 to 6]. There are a lot of components we can use that are the same. The fundamental engineering and manufacturing of those frames for commercial are all very similar. We can expand our expertise in Class 3 into higher classes. We're doing this because, what else is out there?"Bollinger had announced a starting price of $125,000 for the B1 SUV and B2 pickup truck, well above the pricing of the Rivian R1T, Ford F-150 Lightning, Chevrolet Silverado EV, and even the expensive Edition 1 version of the GMC Hummer HEV."Way back in 2015 when I started the company," Bollinger told us, "I knew there was going to be an electric [Ford] F-150 in the future. Things would go all-electric, so [we wanted to] make a truck that's really unique, very different, has all these capabilities that you won't find in any other truck. We succeeded in that and it became a vehicle we knew would be hand-assembled, low-volume and niche. I will go to my grave saying the B1 and B2 have no competition."We'd be lying if we said we weren't a little disappointed. There was a lot we were looking forward to seeing in the Bollinger trucks, not least of all that 12-foot cargo pass-through from the front to the rear of the truck, which is arguably even cooler than the Rivian R1T's Gear Tunnel.Bollinger plans to return deposits put down on B1 and B2 trucks, so does that mean the consumer vehicles are gone for good?"Never say never," Bollinger told us. "The B1 and B2 will always be in my heart. We're keeping all of that intellectual property, obviously. [But] commercial is definitely 100 percent of the focus right now."
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