Bradley Automotive was forced into bankruptcy in late 1978.Īfter a reorganization was completed in 1980, they emerged as Electric Vehicle Corporation, makers of electric cars called Bradley GTEs. This captured the attention of the Minnesota attorney general who opened a fraud investigation. They went so far as to picket outside company headquarters in Plymouth. As a kid, did you ever lose a key piece to that 1:25th scale MPC plastic model kit? Multiply that feeling by hundreds, and you’ll have a good gage of the mood of Bradley customers in the late 70s. Kits were shipped with missing parts, or ones that didn’t fit. Unfortunately, Bradley only had the capacity to make 10-12. Orders were now being taken for 30-40 cars a month. This worked well for a while, until it didn’t.

Who needs salesmen? In 1978, Gary Courneya introduced a kind of pyramid scheme where Bradley customers could become Bradley brokers. They formed Bradley Automotive, and in 1971 introduced a fiberglass sports car called the Bradley GT. At about the time Bruce Meyers was entering bankruptcy, Courneya and Fuller were expanding their product line beyond the dunes. Southern California salesman, Gary Courneya had teamed up with fiberglass designer, David Bradley Fuller, to build and market their own dune buggy bodies. One of those copycats was Gary’s Buggy Shop of Plymouth, Minnesota. Just as Meyers was expanding his operation, his sales took a hit from a slew of new low cost competitors.

What is clear is that Meyers’ instant success brought copycats by the buggy load.

The origins of the term ‘dune buggy’ are not clear. The Manx went into serial production that year, and sales took off. The Meyers Manx was designed as an off-road racing car, winning the Mexican (later called Baja) 1000 in 1964. In a round-about way Bruce Meyers’ iconic dune buggy lead to the Bradley. And then there was the subject of our story, the Bradley GT.

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