The annual festival of automotive delights known as Monterey Car Week is on the horizon, and with the flagship automotive event of the summer comes a bevy of secret vehicles to be revealed at one of the events. Sometimes, however, these are spotted ahead of time being hoisted out of the cargo bays of wide-body aircraft at Los Angeles International Airport or San Francisco International Airport en route to Monterey — but on Wednesday, one automotive content creator caught something interesting before its transatlantic crossing.
According to his Instagram, Thomas Howarth (a.k.a. @horsepower_hunters) was beginning his trip to the U.S. for MCW at London's Heathrow Airport on August 6 when he spotted something unusual being loaded onto the Virgin Atlantic Airbus A350 that was about to take him to Los Angeles: a futuristically styled short-wheelbase buggy, clad in jack-0-lantern orange and wearing a set of oversized all-terrain tires.The closed-canopy construction also sets it apart from other buggy vehicles like those from California-manufacturer Meyers Manx. It's not like anything we've seen before, at least not on this side of a Syd Mead drawing.
Howarth is a certified enthusiast himself (with a Lamborghini Aventador to boot), and did a bit of detective work. His first impression of the taillights suggested a Meyers Manx, he wrote, and our eyes concur with that assessment, especially given the shared rear-end design with the previously teased hardcover electric version. However, a search of the registration plate turned up a complete different make.
"The registration plate of ‘KT05 YPG’ belongs to an orange 2005 3.6 liter Porsche, and thanks to the zoom on an iPhone I was able to identity ‘Meyers Man1’ or similar written on the side," Howarth wrote on Instagram.
Now, we can't say for sure that this space-age homage to the dune buggy is headed to Monterey Car Week, but its travel to the Golden State a week ahead of time certainly raises suspicions. Meyers Manx has been a regular at area events like The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering, and it is on the vendor list this year as well. Notably, the Costa Mesa-based startup revealed its radial engine powered buggy last year at The Quail, and Road & Track editor-at-large Matt Farah picked up his personal model earlier this week.
There's one personality that adds more substance to this fray of speculation surrounding Meyers Manx. While the original brand rode up and down financial waves through the 1960s and 1970s, its modern iteration is the result of a venture capital deal in 2020, which initially embedded Freeman Thomas as CEO of the brand before he moved to the role of vice-chairman. Thomas is best known for his design work on the original Audi TT and the '90s Volkswagen Beetle, models that both reshaped their respective brand's design languages. Put original concept drawings of the Audi TT and this new, futuristic buggy next to each other, and we'll let your eyes decide if there's a link.
(R&T has reached out to Meyers Manx for insight on this vehicle and will update the story if needed.)
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