Volkswagen's green revival is moving at a brisk pace: at the Geneva Motor Show in March, the brand will unveil the classic beach buggy in an electric version. We can't wait to see it. In the meantime, here's what it looked like in the '60s.
Rumours that Volkswagen was giving serious consideration to unveiling the mythical dune buggy in an electric version had been circulating since last November. And confirmation arrived a few days ago. The buggy will return in an electric version at the forthcoming Geneva Motor Show, scheduled from 7 to 17 March. "The buggy is more than just a car. It is vitality and passion on four wheels. These characteristics," explained Klaus Bischoff, Volkswagen's head of design, "take shape in the new e-buggy, a modern rather than retro interpretation of a classic that, more than anything else, demonstrates the emotional connection that electric mobility is capable of creating."
For now it is only a prototype, but rumours suggest it is all but certain. The electric Buggy will be built on Volkswagen's new MEB electric architecture, the same platform that will be used for the affordable electric models the group has announced for the coming years. As with the original buggy, and with the Beetle, the drive and engine will be rear-mounted, although the VW MEB (Modular Electric Toolkit) platform will also support all-wheel drive thanks to the addition of a second front motor. True to the original spirit, the electric Buggy has no roof and no doors (a feature that will almost certainly not be retained in the production model) and features open wheels with off-road tyres. In the meantime, as Stefano Sordelli, future mobility manager of Volkswagen Group Italia, told us in an interview, the German group is engaged in a profound transformation, centred precisely on electric vehicles.
As has already happened with the Citroën Méhari, VW too is preparing to launch other iconic models from the past in electric versions: the legendary Bulli van and the "zero-emissions" reincarnation of the original Beetle (perhaps in a four-door version). Meanwhile, the concept of the dune buggy — spectacular and iconic — is certainly a strategic tool for drawing attention to the new range of VW electric cars. Volkswagen plans to build 15 million cars on the affordable MEB platform (plus many more electric models on more expensive platforms).
The German manufacturer has also announced that it will build electric cars in the United States, at its plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where both the Buzz ID (the historic Bulli in electric form) and the new electric buggy are likely to be produced. The buggy still has no official name, but at Geneva it will represent an important test for VW: from the interest shown by the public and the press, the company will gauge whether to actually put the future electric buggy into production (rumours suggest it is almost a certainty…).
In 1964, American Bruce Meyers assembled the first dune buggy: handmade, with no doors or roof, it was built on a shortened Beetle chassis. Meyers was looking for an alternative to the heavy 4×4 jeeps that would be better suited to the Californian dunes. The first buggy, the "Meyers Manx", quickly became an icon. Extremely fun to drive, it conquered the beaches of the American coast and became a cult car of the '70s. It is estimated that up to the 1980s, around 250,000 vehicles "reinterpreted" in buggy form were built by coachbuilders and small manufacturers on a VW base worldwide, with those signed by Hebmüller and Rometsch among the most prized by collectors, alongside of course the American Meyers-Manx Buggy.