UPDATE: David Crawford reports that his father built 36 different Empi’s that ended up all over the western US. In the comments below, he wrote,

“My dad, Bill Crawford, of Tuolumne, CA, “sparkplugged” the build, on those 2’VW based cars. He bought a set of plans for the EMPI Sportster, and made a whole bunch of mods. He planned to build one article, and 20 years later, there were @ 36 of them built, and running around.
Three of them went to South Dakota. A friend in the Phoenix area, over the years, took 3 of the cars from Norcal, and sold them in the Phoenix area.

Most of the cars were built in his home shop, and about 10 of the cars were assembled by students in a high school auto shop survey class that he taught. There are still several of them floating around Norcal.

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Original Post June 2012:

The Empi Dune Buggy was an early metal kit for VWs. There were several styles.  According to tunacan.net, “The EMPI Sportster was a sheet metal buggy built on a modified VW Beetle floorpan. It was available in a two passenger model or a four passenger model. All Sportsters featured a “Deluxe Folding Windshield” and were constructed of 20-, 18-, and 12- guage steel.”

Jim, who pics are shown below, wrote:

“We got the Empi running and driving the night before the Durango car show. I washed, scrubbed and entered this quality piece of early 1960s dune buggy Americana and am shocked that I didn’t win a trophy! Crazy huh? All sarcasm aside, little kids loved it, old men remembered it from “back in the day”, rat rod guys thought it cool, I was really surprised at how much attention and photos it created. Still though, no trophy? People just don’t appreciate a good old fashioned, fugly, all metal dune buggy these days, sigh…”

Jim notes that he strategically positioned himself near the only flat fenders at the show.  You can see some of his older flatties here.

Nelson’s Empi Dune Buggy