We love oddly and/or heavily modified vehicles, but some level of period appropriatness is important. Nineteen inch wheels on a ’58 Pontiac? No. Turbo Corvair Spyder motor in a metalflake, fiberglass, super-groovy 1968 VW-based dune buggy? Yes.
This particular example comes to us from Cars4Causes via eBay, who unloads various “Donate your junk car/boat/plane for a tax write-off” vehicles. As denizens of the bottom of the automotive food chain, we know there’s many a nugget to be found from a seller specializing in vehicles that people “just want gone”. What kind of nugget remains the key mystery.
Jump, like 1800lbs of fiberglass off a sand dune.
Rob’s our resident kit car expert, so either he so someone here will have to weigh in on whose kit this is. It seems to borrow heavily from both the C3 ‘Vette, and a Glastron ski boat. Despite a few minor flaws, both the glass and the paint are in great shape for the years. Sea-blue metalflake is the perferct shade. While looking a bit worse for wear, the interior sports a comically small steering wheel and some sweet fixed-back vinyl buckets. All it’s missing in a roach holder.

The craziness continues out back, where a “150” hp turbo Corvair motor’s been swapped in. As fans of oddball engineering overreaches from days gone by, the only other swap that’d be worth a shot would’ve been a Toronado engine and transaxle, or maybe some kind of absurd Porsche powerplant. Besides, the Toronado big block would’ve totally thrown off the weight bala…nevermind.

Per the seller, the engine will crank, but needs some carburetor love to really run, and the gauges are mostly non-functional. It’ll keep you busy, but for a current price of $560, it’s hard to go wrong.
1968 VW Dune Buggy w/Turbo Corvair Power – eBay Motors