The 1977 is an educated guess based on the license plate, but in all honesty I have no idea what year this (car?) is, nor do I know who manufactured it.

The beach buggy craze was ignited by the introduction of the Meyers Manx in 1965, which was created by Bruce Meyers and made by crafting a custom fiberglass body and placing it on a shortened Volkswagen Beetle chassis. Since Meyers’ design was ruled unpatentable, other companies jumped onto the bandwagon and started to churn out their own fiberglass buggies. It’s estimated that over 250,000 copies of the Manx were produced, including the one pictured here. This ultimately crippled Manx’s company, which folded in 1971.

This particular example was spotted in the California beach town of Venice, an appropriate location for the quintessential beach car.

Venice, Los Angeles, CA

Photographed April 2013