Dune buggy has decades of history

If car seats could talk, the interior of one “street machine” built by two longtime friends more than four decades ago would have a most interesting story to tell.
Wayne Sphar and Rich Celani claim they own the oldest registered dune buggy in Pennsylvania. The metallic-blue mean machine has been buzzing around the roads of Washington County for decades.
But it all started as a hunk of twisted metal in the summer of ’70.
“I was young,” said Celani, now 78, of Washington, “looking for antiques to restore. Then I read an article about dune buggies.
“I thought, ‘That’s what I’ll do.'”
Both Celani and Sphar have been “gearheads” their whole lives. They bonded as teens over their love of automobiles and had worked at various repair and body shops all over the area. In fact, it was in a repair shop Celani worked where the dune buggy’s story began.
A Volkswagen Beetle came into the shop one day. Although the body was a total wreck, the pair thought the frame, drive shaft and engine – which only had 6,900 miles on it – had potential. So, he purchased what was left of the vehicle.
“I said, ‘That’s right up my alley, here,'” said Sphar, 76, of West Middleton.
After disassembling the automobile, the gearshift mechanism, shifting rails, clutch cables, emergency brake cables and hydraulic cables were precisely shortened by 7.5 inches before Sphar and Celani welded the whole thing back together again.
Working evenings and weekends, the two men converted the familiar Volkswagen with its 1600cc, 53-horsepower engine into a dune buggy by installing a prefabricated frame.
“This is a professionally built auto,” Sphar said. “Very road worthy.”
The completed roadster, with a precast fiberglass body lighter than the original, can really zip around. But the owners said they have never really opened up the throttle. “We made this for a street machine,” Sphar said.
“I’ve had it up to 60,” Celani said. “I wouldn’t go any faster than that. It’s a toy.”
The pair said the dune buggy has made a number of public appearances in local events, most notably the Fourth of July parade in Canonsburg, as well as Halloween and Christmas parades in and around the city and a very special Trinity Senior Day.
“Everybody wants to go for a ride,” Celani said. “They flock around it.”
Despite the “dune buggy” moniker, the vehicle has been to the beach only one time in its 40-year lifespan – a 1973 trip to Presque Isle in Erie made by one of Celani’s nephews.
Other than the reupholstered white-and-blue vinyl seats and some added chrome detail, the roadster doesn’t look much different than it did during that early trip.
“Basically, it’s the same way be built it,” Celani said.
The two men have teamed up for a number of projects over the years, including other dune buggies built for clients. Their backgrounds – Sphar with experience as a mechanical repairman and Celani as an auto-body expert – meant they took on a lot of work together.
But the blue dune buggy will always hold a special place in their hearts.
“We worked on a lot of other things, but this was probably our coolest project,” Sphar said.