OVERVIEW:
Dune Buggies - The Fun Car Journal was first published in three quarterly editions as a Cycle World
Special Edition. The publisher was Joseph Conrad Parkhurst in Long Beach, California. Parkhurst had created
Cycle World in 1962, and he used a more objective approach to product evaluations.
After three quarterly publications, the magazine was launched as a full-sized, bi-monthly product in June, 1968. A year later it went to a monthly format, then in April, 1970, the "fun car" aspect of the title was dropped and the magazine became Dune Buggies and Hot VWs. At this point, content was nearly 100% off-road oriented.
OWNERSHIP:
With the summer 1972 edition, the magazine was sold to Wright Publishing in Costa Mesa, California. Jim Wright took over as editor and publisher.
Then in May, 2017, the magazine was purchased by Orange County International (OCI) Media. The new owner and publisher is Shin Mukai. The magazine is still published, making it one of the oldest and most established publications centered on VW-powered performance.
The table of contents, if available, can be seen by clicking on the 
icon.
PUBLICATION DATA:
Parkhurst Publishing and Wright Publishing both provided net paid circulation data to multiple periodical compendia
from 1970 to 2005 (which is the last year for which we have
data at this time). Over this time period, average monthly print production started at 62,000 issues, grew to 111,500
issues in 1989, and then settled down to around 92,000 issues to the end of our data set.
CONTENT COMPLETENESS:
Over 657 issues have been printed from Winter, 1967 through December, 2024. However, we have only included cover images through 2020
at this time, and all images are complete.
INTERNET:
An internet presence was created and links added to the front covers starting in June, 1998. www.hotvws.com