Auckland Grammar student builds beach buggy from scratch

Monday, 18 July 2016

Most 16-year-olds are content to just have a car but for Bevan Tucker is was about building one.

The Auckland Grammar School student has just finished his very own Manx style, two-seater beach buggy.

The vehicle is essentially a kit car which Bevan built by following a 'How to' booklet, something his father AJ has done in the past. 

It's based off the Meyers Manx dune buggies which were first built in California in the 1960s by using a shortened chassis from a Volkswagen Beetle.

The build began in January 2014 and wrapped up this month with the main fibreglass body being sourced in Auckland. 

Bevan says the inspiration came when riding his friend's buggy to the Kumeu Classic Car Show three years ago. 

'It was on that drive where I thought, 'I've got to build one of these, this is making people really happy'.'

But the project was never about building something for speed, the Mt Eden resident says.

'Because of how light it is, it's only about 500 kilos, it's more about the thrill of the low speeds because it's open and there's no windows.

'It feels like you're going 200 [kmh] when you're going 100… it can be quite scary when you're on the motorway and a truck wheel is next to your head.'

Bevan never followed a design plan, it was simply about a maintaining a vision. 

'You sort of think up what you want it to look like when it's finished and keep that in mind the whole time…. it's ended up pretty similar to what I wanted it to look like.'

He says it's a shame he's had to cover up the hard work he had put in underneath the body. 

'Once you've sanded it all down and get everything smooth you can't really tell, it looks like a factory car.' 

The process wasn't injury free with an A&E trip in the final week as a result of cutting his fingers when installing the engine. 

Bevan says he'd like to go on to study engineering.

'I think this will help, it's even helping in my school work in product design and technology…it's the hands on real world experience rather than just the theory.'