Someone paid US$456,000 for Steve McQueen’s Dune Buggy

By: Alex Affat, Unique Cars magazine

Date: 17.03.2020

Surely a world record price for a Meyers Manx dune buggy

Headlines were made at the start of 2020 as the Forest Green 1968 Ford Mustang driven by Steve McQueen in the movie Bullitt, sold for AU$4.9 million.

A few weeks ago, at Bonham’s Amelia Island auction, another vehicle attached to the famous Hollywood actor and car nut similarly sold for unheard of amounts of money.

The vehicle in question was a modified Meyers Manx Dune Buggy, and sold for a staggering US$456,000. That’s a ludicrous AU$744,500 at the currently weak exchange rate – but a relative bargain to the more famous movie car.

The Dune Buggy is also a bonafide McQueen movie car, appearing in the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair.

The Meyers Manx buggy was originally a fibreglass kit car, meant to be fitted atop a shortened VW Beetle chassis and engine. McQueen oversaw the extensive modifications of this buggy for the film, with the centrepiece being a 2.7lt flat-six from a Chevrolet Corvair, as well as custom a quilted interior and recessed headlights.

After filming the movie, the car was sold to a car dealer in Hawaii, who replaced the Corvair engine with a racing VW engine. Its latest owner owned the car for nigh on two decades before treating the buggy to a complete restoration, with high levels of sympathy towards existing original components, but returning to the Corvair flat-six that Mcqueen requested in period.

Bonhams state that this may be the last vehicle linked to the King of Cool for the immediate future, as most other of his cars are currently held in long-term collections.

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