Adune buggy, also known as abeach buggy, is a recreationaloff-road vehicle with large wheels, and widetires, designed for use onsand dunes, beaches,off-road or desert recreation. The design is usually a topless vehicle with arear-mounted engine. A dune buggy can be created by modifying an existing vehicle or custom-building a new vehicle.
Dunebuggies are typically created by modifying an existing road vehicle,[1] whilesandrails are built from the ground up as a custom vehicle.
For dune buggies built on the chassis of arear-engined existing vehicle, theVolkswagen Beetle has been most commonly used as the basis for the buggy, though conversions were made from other rear-engined cars (such as theCorvair andRenault Dauphine).[2] The model is nicknamed Bug, lending partial inspiration to the term "buggy." The Beetleplatform chassis was used because the rear engine layout improves traction,[3] theair-cooled engine[4][5] avoids the complexities and failure points associated with awater-cooled engine, the Beetle's fronttorsion bar suspension was not only considered cheap and robust,[6] but it was also extremely easy to alter and adjust its ride-height. Furthermore, spare parts — and donor vehicles themselves — were cheap and readily available.[7] While early dune buggy conversions were left with no body, or featured custom bodies of sheet metal (such as the EMPI Sportsters and similar buggies), glass-reinforced plastic (fiberglass) bodies, developed in the 1960s, have become the standard image of the modern buggy, and come in many shapes and sizes.
The original fiberglass dune buggy was the 1964 "Meyers Manx" built by Bruce Meyers.[2] Bruce Meyers designed his fiberglass bodies as a "kit car", using the Volkswagen Beetle chassis.[3] Many other companies worldwide have been inspired by the Manx, making similar bodies and kits.[3] These types of dune buggies are known as "clones".[2]
A sandrail is a lightweight vehicle similar to a dune buggy, but designed specifically for operation on open sand.
Sandrails are usually built as aspaceframe by welding steel tubes together.[8][9] The name sandrail is due to the frame "rails" present. The advantage of this method is that the fabricator can change fundamental parts of the vehicle (usually the suspension and addition of a built-in roll cage). Sandrails, as per dune buggies, often have the engine located behind the driver. Sizes can vary from a small-engine one-seat size to four-seat vehicles with eight or more cylinders.[10]
A similar, more recent generation of off-road vehicle, often similar in appearance to a sandrail, but designed for a different use, is the "off road go-kart". The difference may be little more than fitting all-terrain tires instead of sand tires and the much smaller size of the engine.
Because of the advantages a buggy can afford on some terrain, they are also used by themilitary.[11]
The buggies built for the United States military used to be calledDesert Patrol Vehicles (DPV) or Fast Attack Vehicles (FAV), and with the latest improvements are known asLight Strike Vehicles (LSV). They are used byUnited States Navy SEALs, the SAS, and other forces. Among the dune buggies used by the United States military is theChenowth Advanced Light Strike Vehicle.[12] TheUS Border Patrol also uses this (although it is not a military organization).
In the United Kingdom, the SAS have used cut-down, light-weight all terrain vehicles for secret special operations "behind the lines" since early in World War II.[13] A buggy was used by the BritishSpecial Air Service (SAS) forces during theGulf War. A long-range special desert operations vehicle was developed in 1992 and nicknamed "pink panthers" because of their color,[14] but these were only modifiedLand Rovers.[15][16] Cuba has been known to use Dune Buggies for military use.[17]
