Sandrail, Sand Rail

A sandrail is a lightweight motor vehicle specifically built for traveling across sandy terrain. It's most popular to operate a Sandrail in actual sand dunes, like Glamis, Pismo and Rasor in California, St. Anthony Dunes in Idaho, or Little Sahara in Utah. Sand dunes are located in all parts of the world and across the US. Sandrails are typically light weight cars that use high flotation tires, allowing the car to skim over the surface of the sand without getting stuck. A sandrail has a low center of gravity which permits it to turn even on the face of a sand dune. Many types of off-road vehicles are relatively top heavy and can only safely climb or descend steep hills with a mostly perpendicular approach to inclines or downhills.

Sandrails are built from a tubular space frame chassis that incorporates an integrated roll cage. There are usually no windows, doors, fenders, or body panels. The engine is typically at the rear or mid-engine mounted. Lightweight and air cooled engines like Volkswagen engine from the VW Beetle, early air cooled engines from cars such as Porsches or the Chevrolet Corvair were originally used, but many of the new high dollar models now feature water cooled engines such as those found in most vehicles on the road today.

The front tires are sometimes narrow to allow them to dig into the sand while turning, other designs with better weight distribution (using lighter motors such as Subaru) can use wider farm implement tires up front to gain more flotation and minimize the sand thrown into the laps of the occupants when turning. Sandrails often use large rear "sandtires" (to provide traction and flotation) that incorporate rubber paddles. Sandrails are almost always rear-wheel drive.

The vast majority of the cars use a manual transmission, although automatic transmissions are used as well. The downside to an automatic is typically reliability since they have limitations on the force it can handle. The most popular configuration will seat four adults and have around 400 hp (300 kW), weighing around 2,000 lb (910 kg) empty. Jumping two to four ft (0.6-1.2 m) off the ground is common play seen at most duning events, with some exceeding heights of ten feet.

Kit Cars

A kit car is an automobile that is available in kit form, which means that the client buys a set of parts and needs to assemble the car themselves. Usually many major mechanical parts such as the engine and transmission are taken from one or more donor vehicles. Kits vary in completeness from as little as a book of plans to a complete set of all the components required.

The definition of a kit car is usually taken to mean that a number of kits are produced by a manufacturer for sale to the public. A car built at home as a one-off to the designs of its builder is termed a Special.

Current kit cars are often replicas of well-known and expensive classics and are designed so that anyone with a measure of technical skill can build them at home, to a standard where they can be driven on the public roads.

Many car drivers react sceptically when they first hear about kit cars as it appears to them to be technically impossible to assemble a car at home and also use it on the public roads. They may also be worried that such a car would not subsequently pass the mandatory quality control (road worthiness test) that is required in most countries.

Several of today's sports car producers such as Lotus and TVR started as kit car makers.

Beach Buggies

Beach, or 'Dune' buggies with glass-reinforced plastic (fiberglass) bodies come in many shapes and sizes. The origional, The Meyers Manx dune buggy was designed by Californian engineer, artist, and surfer Bruce Meyers. It was built by his company between 1964 and 1971.

The car featured a fiberglass bodyshell coupled with Volkswagen Beetle frame and engine. It is a tiny car, with a wheelbase 14 1/4 inches shorter than a Beetle for lightness and better maneuverability. For this reason, the car is capable of very quick acceleration and good off-road performance.

The Meyers Manx received widespread recognition when it won the inaugural Mexican 1000 race, the predecessor of the Baja 1000 and beating motorcycles, cars and trucks in the process.

Approximately 5,000 of the original Meyers Manx dune buggies were produced, but when the design became popular many look-alikes (estimated at a quarter of a million worldwide) were made by other companies. Meyers tried to stop the copies by suing under the patent process but the patent was not upheld in court. Since then countless buggies continue to be produced today. Many people recognize this body-type simply as the "Dune Buggy" or "Beach Buggy"