1971 ASVE Dune Buggy On Hemmings

Well here's a blast from the past (like you'll find anything else on Hemmings, the Bible, Torah, Koran and Bhagavad-Gita of the car world). The car in question is a 1971 ASVE Dune Buggy all done up in post-psychedelic Summer of Love hippie styling, and featuring a coupe of long boards strapped to the top.

Time was, these things, dune buggies, seemed to be everywhere. That time, of course, was the late 1960s. It was an outgrowth and confluence of the post-Gidget surf culture and the hot rod car culture. You'd see them in the most unlikely of places. Like in the mid-west or in Washington State.

It would be a particularly forlorn sight to see one on a rainy February night, about as far away from fun in the sun and the Beach Boys as one could get. Not to mention thinking about just how in hell it got that far inland. They had about all the creature comforts of a Lotus 7. They have no doors or heaters and most of them didn't even have an attempt at a roof.

Who in their right mind would drive something like a dune buggy for hours and hours, if not days, to a place like Portland Oregon or Boise Idaho? It made as much sense and would seem about as out of place as seeing s Citroen 2CV in Anchorage. Sure, you could, but why?

So, what we have here, or what Hemmings has is a very nice and period correct 1971 ASVE Dune Buggy. It's based on a Barris-designed 1971 ASVE Bugaloo dune buggie, rather than the more common Myers style of dune buggy. It was used in a TV show called "The Bugaloos" and will soon be auctioned off by an outfit called Mecum’s at a Kissimmee, Florida, auction.

Or, as Mecum’s describes it: "This 1971 ASVE Barris Phase 4 Fun Buggy was custom built by Hollywood’s “King of the Kustomizers”, George Barris. This charming piece features a high performance 1776 CC engine, roof-mounted surf boards, a deck-mounted travel trunk and colorful Barris graphics. An identical Phase 4 Buggy was used as the basis for as the “Bugaloo’s Buggy” from the 1970’s kid TV show, “The Bugaloos”."

What the don't mention is that those long boards look like Greg Noll designs, or at least the fins look a lot like his. And there are some serious stickers on that suitcase strapped to the back as well. I can see stickers from surfboard shapers like Con, Hap Jacobs, I think Dewey Webber and there's a Yater sticker that's as plain as day.

Yater, by the way, is the surfboard preferred and used by Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now.

Source: Hemmings