It goes without saying that dune buggies aren't anywhere near as popular as their heydays in the '60s and '70s. These days, four-wheel drives dominate all that off-road territory, relegating those open-air beach machines to rural hills and coastal sand berms. But in a video released Sunday, YouTuber Chad Bee, known for his time in Thailand checking out everything from modded mud tractors to animated sports car replicas, headed to Dubai, where these legendary buggies still reign supreme.
Some Buggies Feature Quad-Turbo
The moment Bee stops by a private race shop in Dubai, he's immediately stoked by the custom buggies dotting the lot. Most of them boast LS crate V-8s with dual turbo. Bee set his eyes on one mogul monster with a 454 cubic-inch engine with a quad-turbo set installed. He's told by the driver that this buggy's packing 1,400 horsepower, causing him to do a double-take. "I'd like to say I'm ready for this," yells Bee over the engine noise, "but I don't know if I am!"
While Bee marvels at how this buggy chugs along at a cruising speed, he's aware that Sahara-based speedsters have to deal with organic obstacles, like other drivers back in Southeast Asia. "When you're doing motorsports activities in Thailand, you always have to worry about hitting a buffalo," he noted when the sand roadster passes a few dromedaries, "Here in the UAE, they have camels."
A Few LS Engines Kick Out 1,500 HP
Bee and his driver meet up with a contingent of other sand buggy owners parked by a gigantic dune where the action is set to begin. The supercharged vehicles feature LS engines delivering 1,000 horsepower to the rear wheels while quad-turbos have up to 1,500 horsepower to play with. The result is a hell-raising experience of hitting the dunes, sometimes with a buggy's front wheels popping as high as six feet. "These are some of the most savage sand buggies on planet Earth!" exclaimed Bee.
One owner of a buggy 7.4-liter V8 boasting 1,000 horsepower and a four-liter Whipple supercharger offers Bee a ride to experience the dunes first-hand. Bee straps himself into the passenger side with his trusty camera. As the vehicle traverses the bumpy contours, Bee has a difficult time holding the camera steady while catching his breath between jumps.
High-Speed Sand Motorsports
Once it's over, Bee recollects his thoughts on what it was like to go through insane sandy contours at top speeds. "That was insane," he recalled. "That was a motorsports experience I will never forget and one that you can only have here in Dubai."
Fortunately, Bee reported no camel casualties while filming the video.
Source: CB Media