Bugeye Sprites on a National business radio program?
Last night on NPRs “Marketplace”, David had a chance to tell the world a little about what we do here at Bugeyeguys.
Thank you to NPRs business program “Marketplace” for featuring a segment about our little slice of the classic car industry!
501 & Gumby Return Victorious!
We did it!
This past week, I attended the National Austin-Healey Club Enclave in Pennsylvania. I decided to bring two Bugeyes that could not possibly be more polar opposite from each other. Car 501 was there to be judged as a concours vehicle, undergoing 4 hours of relentless judging from a panel of 4 experts with the goal of attaining gold medal certification. Gumby was brought to show at the popular vote show in downtown Stroudsburg. Much to my delight, we left the Poconos with both cars receiving the highest possible awards!
[Read more…] about 501 & Gumby Return Victorious!AN5 501 is Finally on the Move!
In case you missed it, I bought the first production Bugeye Sprite back in December, and have been waiting patiently for supply chain issues to resolve so that 501 could get a ride out of Melbourne, Australia where the car was parked at a dealership, waiting in limbo. We are exceptionally excited to have acquired this amazing piece of Bugeye history. Now we just need to get her here!
Our boat date was finally confirmed as April 30, and much to my delight, the car has been packed in a 40 foot container and she’s ready to go. You could put a lot of Foster’s Lager in there with our little Bugeye, and I have to believe that something must have been packed in there with it. I’d imagine that we don’t just have a tiny 11 foot long Bugeye luxuriating in such a big box, but I will never get to see the container, as I will not be present when all the kangaroos jump out when our box arrives in New Jersey.
[Read more…] about AN5 501 is Finally on the Move!Bugeyeguy in Hagerty Drivers Club Magazine
In the Summer of 2015, our passion-based Spritely business reached a major fork in the road, when our landlord needed his space back and our Bugeyes became homeless. The Quonset Hut across the street from our shop was for sale though, and while it seemed entirely appropriate to put curvey little cars into a curved building, once the ink dried and the building was mine, I now had a lot of broken cars to restore and a broken 1951 building to restore as well. See photo above… this was a rough hut.
The home of a glass blowing studio when I came along, 59 North Harbor Street was originally a storage building for the wooden forms for the iron foundry across the street. The metal roof leaked badly. But the foundation was bulletproof and the vibe was right, (or one day would be right, I prayed) so off we went on a massive building rehab project that left Bugeyes and building materials scattered everywhere.
Fast forward to today… our restored Q-hut has now launched 324 Bugeye adventures, for wonderful clients all around the world. We are making a lot of people very happy, drivers and spectators alike. Each one of our cars is an evangelist for a different way to interact with conveyance. Our drivers arrive with a smile, and they are making a lot of other people smile along the way. It has now become quite routine, for example, to be rolling along in the right lane in a Bugeye, while a spectator in the left lane is leaning out the passenger shooting a video to share with friends.
“Look what I saw on the highway today!
These cars touch people’s lives, and we are honored to have the opportunity to make them work better than they did when new. We are currently building a Bugeye for the daughter of a dad who lost his Bugeye in the Paradise fire a few years back. We recently put a Bugeye in the hands of a client whose health challenges accelerated his need to fulfill his bucket list NOW. And we look forward to the next 324 people we have yet to meet whose lives will be similarly transformed.
The Hagerty Drivers Club Magazine piece that just came out (featured here) is an acknowledgment of what we have created, fueled by passion for a wonderful little sportscar that was last manufactured in 1960. We are honored to arrive at this moment in our journey, and we look forward to supporting you on yours.
Thank you for helping us to arrive at this very special moment. And we have a lot more fun and excitement to come!
If you haven’t already seen it, you can read all seven pages of the Hagerty article in the reader below.
Ducky, the Larricks and Bugeyeguy in the NY Times
The nice folks at The New York Times just published a great story about road-tripping in classic cars, featuring “Ducky” and the Larricks. We’ve included a copy of the article below, but if you would like to view it on The New York Times page, you can do so by clicking here (If you click over to the Times site, you may need to sign up to create a free account.)
This was our greatest reliability run ever, and our team did an awesome job building a car to make this epic 4000 mile trip.
