HERBST LANDSHARK TRUGGY
The Half Truck Half Buggy That Changed The Class 1 Game Forever
By SCORE Journal Staff
By the 1990s, most Class 1 buggies were custom tube chassis and did not resemble any of the architecture of the vehicles that used VW suspension and engines. One of the vehicles that was the next to break barriers in the class, was the Herbst Land Shark. In 1995, Mike Smith and the Herbst Motorsports team pushed the rules of what a Class 1 buggy should be by using a front engine and rear solid axle design on a buggy chassis– and thus, the “El Tiburon” was born.
With a SCORE Trophy Truck solid rear axle instead of a plunged rear axle used on buggies at the time, the Herbst team ran 39-inch diameter tires. Smith also designed oversized shocks and utilized a big block 454CID Ford V8 and Turbo 400 transmission. With Troy Herbst and Larry Roeseler behind the wheel, the Truggy was unstoppable, winning SCORE Class 1 titles in 1997 and 1998, multiple SCORE Baja 500 and Baja 1000 victories, and dominating off-road racing for nearly a decade.
