Soon we will sell our 200th Bugeye. I still can’t believe it has been possible to move almost 200 of these wonderful little cars through our building.
Here’s a picture of “Gumby,” my 1959 Bugeye I acquired in 1979 and the car that made our enterprise possible. In the photos you can see Russ sanding and buffing Gumby’s new paint and soon the build-out will begin. This will be a one-of-a kind Bugeye that honors everything we have learned from the 200 cars that Gumby spawned.
We plan to upgrade everything we can while still retaining the car’s original look and feel. Hidden within Gumby will be, for example, an aluminum cross-flow head, four-port fuel injection, five speed transmission, custom anthracite wheels and four-wheel disk brakes. This will be our most advanced Bugeye yet, built to enhance performance and reliability, and will still retain many stock features to honor its heritage. We plan this car to be a fitting tribute that should be completed right about when we reach our 200th sale.
About 50,000 Bugeyes were sold between 1958 and 1960. I couldn’t find any dealer data for 1958, but in 1962 there were 560 BMC dealers in the USA. Only 100 of those were capable of selling 100 cars a year (and that’s of the entire BMC Leyland line of cars). While it has taken us about ten years to sell 200 Bugeyes, I can’t find evidence that any single dealer ever sold that many bugeyes when they were new, and we are all proud of the fact that we have been able to focus so effectively on this micro niche of the sports car world.
Thank you for your support and thank you for helping to make this happen!
Here in the video below is a “thank you turn,” in the wonderful blue Mini Cooper currently posted on our site. We are having fun, and are here to help you have fun too.
Here’s to a great holiday season for all!
