Function
Initially dune buggies were designed for navigating desert or beaches (hence use of the word "dune" or "beach"). However, dune buggies have become more diversified in terms of the terrain they can handle and are being built for more generic off road tasks, such as CORR / SCORE indoor track racing. Some are even built for and used as on-road vehicles. Typically the function is determined before the buggy is created in order to maximize the comfort or abilities of the vehicle.
Although dune buggies can be bought (as a kit), many drivers make their own. This is done by separately buying chassis, engine, tires, steering wheel, and axles. Some builders make their own chassis, which creates a special, customized vehicle.
A 1961 or later Volkswagen sedan is the preferred donor to create a Dune Buggy. The VW Type 2, Type 3 and Type 4 do not make good donor cars: however, the engine, transaxle, wheels, and instruments can be used from these models.
Other parts that can be salvaged from a donor VW for use in a Dune Buggy include the front axle and suspension, frame, pedal assembly, shock absorbers, seats, battery, fuel tank (1961 or later), steering column, brakes, instruments and switches, windshield wiper, horn and emergency flasher unit.
Read more about this topic: Dune Buggy
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“Nobody seriously questions the principle that it is the function of mass culture to maintain public morale, and certainly nobody in the mass audience objects to having his morale maintained.”
—Robert Warshow (1917–1955)
“The intension of a proposition comprises whatever the proposition entails: and it includes nothing else.... The connotation or intension of a function comprises all that attribution of this predicate to anything entails as also predicable to that thing.”
—Clarence Lewis (1883–1964)
“Uses are always much broader than functions, and usually far less contentious. The word function carries overtones of purpose and propriety, of concern with why something was developed rather than with how it has actually been found useful. The function of automobiles is to transport people and objects, but they are used for a variety of other purposes—as homes, offices, bedrooms, henhouses, jetties, breakwaters, even offensive weapons.”
—Frank Smith (b. 1928)