Super easy buggy car-topper rack

Sorry if this is a revamp of someone else's idea, but...

The family has a couple beach trips planned over the next couple of months (just got back from Tybee Island), and our family car has one of those roof racks that is not conducive to car-topping the bug. Not to mention that we need the interior space for all of our stuff. Also, the xtra wide back axle makes the wheels sit in a very uncomfortable position,... the wheels sit over the back side windows with the axle about 2" above the rack.

like this



In the interest of using the KISS method (Keep It Simple Stupid), I came up with a very simple solution. It is simply (2x) pieces of 56" long 1" square tube with (2x) pieces of 1" flatbar welded on the ends to make a big rectangle.

like so



I also used 2 pieces of 15" long 1"angle iron which I notched to fit over the square tube and some 3" pipe clamps to clamp down the big rectangle. My idea here is an attempt to make it fit over any similar roof rack.




Once I got it clamped down, the rear wheels sit in the welded rectangle and the front wheel sits on the roof of the car. Add straps and go.



My bug rode on top of the car all the way down from Marietta to Tybee Island at 70+ mph with no problems. We'll be headed back down to coastal GA in May, and I'm sure it will work fine then too. The only problem I found was that the residual sand on the front wheel kinda wore the paint on the roof,... but hey the bug is good.