Kellison Sand Piper

The is one of the radical style buggies that was product in the late 60's. There
were not very many of these buggies made, but David O had one for years.

This Kellison had quite a few style differences from the
typical "manx clone". Designers were trying to separate
themselves being known as a "splash" molded body.
Outside of fitting the standard shortened tub, this buggy
was completely different.

In the picutre at the left you will notice that the XP1 fenders
which were curved. There are no flat spots for putting a drink
can on the front fender ( something Bruce designed in his
Manx ). The headlights mounted on two small bumps near
the edge of the hood.

The front fenders wrapped around the front of the chassis
to form a complete seal. This kept the hood from needing
the drop over the front - thus the clearance on the front is
higher. Now some people assembled them by setting the
hood down without putting fender beading in. The hood
actually took a shape simular to the original VW Hood,
however when mounted without any beading between the
hood and body the hood tended to leak. There, of course,
is dimples for the wiper installation.

The sides of the XP1 did not have the standard
angled sides and the rear of the body had a lot more
ground clearance. The large rear curved fenders also
draped farther back to cover the engine and allowed
the style to wrap around the rear providing a form
matching the front of this buggy. The dash was
more typical of the standard buggy but had enough
room for instrumentation. The licence plate mount
on the riear of the buggy was raised more vertical to
comply with regulations.

When you added the early bug tailights, they could
only fit between the fender insides on the early tailight
bumps and the raised licence bump. The one thing
one will notice also is that the rear fire wall of the seat
did not have any raised lip to which a soft top could be
mounted. It would take some careful thought to add a
soft top to this buggy.

Overall, the Kellison Sand Piper XP1 was smooth
flowing design and made a real effort to get away from
the well known original design of the Fiberglass Dune
Buggy. This was a trend that evoled in the late 60s.