A popular pass time over the years has been the sport of driving a vehicle over the dunes and down to the surf of the beach. These vehicles were first known as the Dune Buggy, as the drivers got more familiar with the dunes they realized the need to modify these buggies for many different reasons. The early dune buggies were cars that had out lived their usefulness as an everyday vehicle. People usually stripped down the cars and most were shortened and lightened up to reduce their weight and to improve their handling.
             Using this type of vehicle had numerous drawbacks. One of these drawbacks were they did not have roll bars installed, and with removing most of its body it was not strong enough too withstand even a minor roll over. The second draw back was the tires, the tires were smooth and made for the open highway, they did not allow for any traction on the sand. Another draw back was that back then, they mostly were made of water-cooled motors, this was fine out on the open road were the engine could be kept cooled down. However, on the sand the motor would run hotter, had a greater potential to over heat, and blow a hose. When this would happen people riding in the buggy were in danger of getting scalded by hot water or steam being released by the hot motor.
             With the introduction of the Volkswagen beetle into the United States, we started seeing them converted into dune buggies with fiberglass bodies with roll bars. These were named the Minx. This drastically changed the dune buggy, as we knew them. One reason was that the Volkswagen is air-cooled. These new buggies were very popular in the southern California area as they were street legal and could be used as an everyday vehicle. You no longer had to tow your buggy to the beach, with the Minx you just drove down to and then down onto the beach. As well with the fiberglass body, it made it extremely lightweight. The major drawback of this design was the bo
             ...