I’m embarrassed by a few of the industry awards my design company has won. There’s nothing wrong with the accolades themselves; it’s just the way we achieved them. No, we didn’t pay anybody off or blackmail them with their internet history. We won for a simple reason: no one else entered in the category.
The items that we were honored for were, at least in the opinion of yours truly who designed them, worthy of the praise – but with only one entry in the group, you could just as easily say they were the worst product as well as the best.
I can’t help but think of the Amphicar in a similar way. As the cover star of the ill-informed World’s Worst Cars book (which Jason is systematically setting right), the little amphibious machine must be considered to be among the best of its type if only for its singularity. And honestly, if you can drive an amphibious car to the water, float around for a bit without getting your socks wet, then drive home, you’ve got yourself a pretty great amphi-car, if not an Amphicar. The Amphicar didn’t last more than a few years, and charming as capable as it is in its original form, I want to revisit, improve, and imagine how it could have lived on to greater critical and sales success.
Despite being German-designed and built, the Amphicar was powered by a Triumph-sourced inline four mounted in back; a lever next to the gear change allowed you to engage the twin propellors once you drove into the water. The front wheels acted as rudders, and by “acted” I mean acted in the same way that Tommy Wiseau did in The Room. Secondary latches on the side doors sealed them shut for water use (and probably just so nobody accidentally opened them).
The Amphicar company was part of the Quant group, an industrial conglomerate oddly enough run by Nazi Joseph Goebbels’ stepson named Harald Quant (the best man at Quant’s mother’s remarriage to Goebbels was a guy named Adolf Hitler). The family holdings included large stakes in the German auto industry with nearly ten percent of Daimler-Benz and thirty percent of BMW. Amphicar was hardly a huge chunk of Quant’s business, but he was apparently a big fan of amphibious transportation and this little car that he built. Few shared this vision, and when Quant was killed in a 1967 plane crash it completely spelled the end of Amphicar.
In hindsight, the Amphicar was the sweet spot of usefulness between its rather crude predecessors and overblown successors in the world of car/boat hybrids. I’ll show you what I mean.
Too Much Boat Or Too Much Car
While production numbers of Amphicar were indeed impressive, they pale in comparison to the 14,276 Volkswagen Schwimmwagens built by the Germans during World War II twenty years before. The Schwimmwagen was essentially a floating version of the flat-four powered VW Jeep called the Kubelwagen that was briefly sold here as the VW Thing.
A propeller could drop down in back to power it in water, but that prop was hooked directly to the crankshaft so it only spun in one direction. Want to go in reverse? Volkswagen recommended either engaging the wheels and spinning them backwards to provide some rearward motivation in the water or, better yet, use the paddles conveniently clipped to the side of the Schwimmwagen. Look, this wasn’t a consumer product and it sure as shit wasn’t recreational. As a simple, functional tool it supposedly could go virtually anywhere the tanks could on land, and naturally over rivers and lakes that they couldn’t. Still, as daily transportation? Forget it.
With amphibious cars built after the Amphicar, the issue didn’t seem to be crudeness: it was needless complexity. In the nineties and even early 2000s there were several firms making modern car/boat combinations such as the Gibbs Aquada. These things reportedly could drive at rather high speeds on the road and travel at Jet Ski-like velocities on the water, feats that were rather unheard of in an Amphicar.
As you’d expect, the Aquada was quite expensive and production ceased after an unknown number were built (reportedly well under 100). Similar creations also failed in the market. Besides the high cost, there’s a fatal flaw with the Aquada others like it: they weren’t Real Cars.
Here’s the question you have to ask about a vehicle: could you, without checking the weather forecast any time of the year, hop into it wearing business casual clothes and drive to a work meeting 100 miles away and back today? If your machine can’t do that, there’s nothing wrong with it, but in my book it can’t be considered a Real Car. It might be a fun toy or even a purpose-built work machine perhaps, but not a Real Car. Complain about my categorization if you must, but I guarantee one thing: if it isn’t a Real Car, it won’t sell in any kind of justifiable numbers.
An Amphicar could do the tasks I just listed above. It might not do it as quickly as most modern cars, but complete the mission it could. The Aquada didn’t even have any fucking doors; forget leaving your backpack and computer in it. How’s your mom supposed to get in that thing? If you have to talk about “weather protection” in a six-figure price vehicle, expect bankruptcy proceedings once the hoopla dies down.
The Amphicar was actually rather affordable at the time; supposedly the price started at around $2800 while a non-floating boat like a new Impala SS convertible started at around $3100. While it couldn’t rival Corvettes on the street and a high-powered Chris Craft out on the lake, guess what? People didn’t care. Having a car that could keep up with traffic and also allow you to just mess around a bit in the water on a nice day with the flick of a switch was more important than pure speed. Also, it beats having to own a giant car to tow your boat to the lake from the spot in your driveway where it takes up space under a tarp for ninety-eight percent of the year (and often refuses to start since it’s been sitting all winter).
If someone had taken the Amphicar and improved on the formula during the mid-sixties, I bet we’d be seeing amphibious cars everywhere today. Here’s how that could have happened.
Rub A Dub Dub A Vee Dub In A Tub?
Exactly what company would choose to take the Amphicar ball and run with it? I have to believe that it’s the same conglomerate that today owns a dozen different car and truck brands among its 342 subsidiary companies: Volkswagen. In the sixties, VW started this expansion with its acquisition of both the Auto Union group and struggling NSU; companies with front-drive technologies that would be instrumental in VW’s second act of the seventies. One could imagine a visionary in Wolfsburg seeing the viability of the Amphicar and how it could have been massaged into something more mass-market. If the 4000 Amphicars sold doesn’t sound like much, remember that’s almost the same number of 911s that Porsche moved in 1967.
Let’s say VW buys the name and intellectual properties of the Amphicar, seeing it as a future of recreational vehicles particularly in the United States. Besides making changes to adapt to upcoming regulations in 1968 that would have deemed the first generation Amphicar unsellable in America, VW would analyze the original car and immediately see two areas that could easily be improved with the original car that they predict could easily double or triple sales.
Problem Number One: It Was Too Damn Slow And Drove Poorly
First, let’s look at more power. Volkswagen during this time was working on a new concept that would ultimately never see the light of day called the EA266. Using an inline four turned on its side and mounted in back facing forwards, this mid-engined proposal was also water-cooled with the radiator mounted opposite the motor. Rear seat passengers actually sit above the motor and the space efficiency of the design is uncanny.
I’d say that VW would look instead at making a shorter, water-cooled flat-four with a rear-mounted radiator, and they’d use that in the new 1967 Generation II Amphicar. The fuel-injected two-liter motor would be hooked up to a four-speed transaxle. Most Amphicars were actually sold in the United States, so later a three-speed automatic option would further help sales even if it killed performance.
Such a layout means that the new Amphicar would have a longer, less stubby-looking wheelbase, as well as a lower center of gravity (critical in a car that by necessity has to be rather jacked up in height) and maybe a small storage space above the motor. Also, this layout would allow for the propellors to be powered by drives coming off of the transaxle, not directly from the crankshaft as on the Schwimmwagen.
As with any radical change of design, you might want to do a “soft launch” and test things first. In 1974, Volkswagen actually released the Golf-based Scirocco sport coupe six months before the full launch of the bread-and-butter Golf to allow them to get any teething problems out of the way. Following this lead, the Amphicar might have been an ideal way for Volkswagen to test out this radical new mechanical layout of the EA266.
Larger Volkswagen-sourced wheels and tires would have helped with ride and drivability, plus they’d act as better rudders in boat mode. Volkswagen would also develop the front disc brakes so they help the front wheels to assist in steering the Amphicar-as-boat better, plus the engineers could have added small fins behind the hubs (I’d give you the German name but it would take up an entire line of this text and only David would be able to read it).
Problem Two: It Looked Ridiculous
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love the look of the old Amphicar, but I love it for its silliness and not outright beauty. Silliness is not something that usually spells strong sales.
I mean, what’s with the tailfins? At the Amphicar’s introduction in 1961 most American manufacturers had already ditched this silly styling trend, and it looks even sillier on this tiny little car. Up front, there’s nothing really wrong with the raised headlights, but the “pontoon” fenders they cap off look more like mailboxes thanks to their thin edges. The aforementioned stubby wheelbase does no favors to this already compromised design. Taillights, turn signals, and even the hood-mounted horn look like the parts bin whatever-we-could-find things that they certainly were (also a fiberglass body might have been a good idea, as the rust-covering red duct tape on the doors of the for-sale example below shows. Yikes):
One of the biggest issues with the look of the original Amphicar is that it doesn’t even remotely look like a boat or even something that should go in the water in the first place. Almost anything can be made to float and be a boat, but there is a distinctive shape to a water-based machine that should at least be somewhat acknowledged, right?
For the styling of the next-generation 1967 Amphicar, Volkswagen wouldn’t have to look far for inspiration. In the mid- to late-sixties, it seemed like there were a large number of cars that already looked a lot like boats. I’m talking about the peaked, often-grille-free, downward-facing nose like the bow of a schooner, with a chrome perimeter band going around the entire car just below the beltline to cover the seam of the fiberglass cover on top of the body, like the hull of a boat below. There’s a lot of examples of this during the era from the Neue-Klasse BMWs to the second generation Corvair to Volkswagen’s own Type 4 (especially the later Brooks Stevens facelifted 1972-74 412). Jason even felt that these larger VWs should have been offered in amphibious versions in the first place.
Other than adding a little length, moving the rear wheels back more, and putting a very slight rake on the windshield, I didn’t do much else to the basic Amphicar before going to town on smoothing out the body in a manner similar to those other contemporary cars. The chrome perimeter trim actually has a rubber strip in the center to protect the paint when docking in a pier or a parking lot.
Here’s a moprh GIF for you to see the changes:
I’ve added a slight cut in the rocker panels to break up the visual mass of the sides. The horn that’s plopped unceremoniously on the hood of the first-generation Amphicar is gone as well; the horn is moved to the back of the side view mirror. I mean, haven’t you always wanted to honk your mirror?
Red and green light bulbs in the area next to the turn signals act as running lights when in the water instead of the stuck-on-the-hood fixture used with the original Ampicar.
The entire hood tips forward like on an old Saab to access the frunk and spare tire, but there’s another possible trick. The windshield might fold forwards and into the frunk area; you then shut the hood and have full access to the hood from the dashboard all the way to what is now the bow of the boat (we could offer little add-on windshields but the Amphicar likely won’t go fast enough to really need them).
Jason requested the option of non-skid material and rails on the hood to allow you to sunbathe or just hang out on the bonnet, which will now act as a bow deck. The US and European versions have different headlights and license plate mounts, of course (with a body-colored filler in the opening left by the sealed beam headlights).
The back of the 1967 Amphicar looks a lot like the front, with wraparound lights and bumpers; the propellors hide down below as on the original car. Note the exhaust pipes (or exhaust pipe and bilge pump outlet) come out of the license plate recess area. The engine cover tips open from the side or has the hinges at the back of the car; you lift the cover and then the convertible top stows under the cover (there’s also a bit of storage space right behind the seat over the flat engine, ideal for life preservers). You can see the cooling slots for the radiator that could be covered with a full-width scoop to direct more air into the radiator. Like the front, non-skid deck material could be added as well as side rails. Overall, I wanted to make something that, once the wheels are submerged (or you cover the bottom half with your hand on the screen), really looks like a boat.
Onc3e again, a morph between the 1961 car and the proposed 1967 model:
The Amphicar interior was pretty basic; just Teutonic functionality:
The second-generation car interior would still be very functional, utilizing those Volkswagen Beetle round pull switches, radio, and interior door handles that they used on everything (even Porsches). One fun trick is the land-based speedometer naturally won’t work in the water, and marine-based speedometers were notoriously unreliable then and totally useless in a water vessel as slow as the Amphicar would likely be. To that end, once in the water you can pivot the now-useless speedometer down to reveal an illuminated half-dome compass. I always loved how the gauges on James Bond’s Esprit pivoted from automotive to submarine in The Spy Who Loved Me so I had to do at least something similar.
There’s even a pull-out step under the dash to allow you to get to the hood, which is now a bow deck, when the car is in water.
I’m Agreeing With Jason So Something Is Wrong
I know that Jason is often really out there, but I think his opinion that people are overcomplicating the whole amphibious car thing is absolutely correct. Most car owners are not street racing on a daily basis, and boating is more about the relaxation of being on the water for most than pretending to be a 1980s-era Florida coastal drug smuggler in one of Don Aronow’s Cigarettes. Trying to make an amphibious car do either of those things will get you something heavily compromised and, more importantly, cost as much as a house. The whole point of an amphibious car is that it should be cheaper to buy and maintain than having both an automobile and a watercraft in your driveway.
No, the Amphicar made sense for a lot of people. The fact that nearly 4000 were sold tells you that they were a viable product. Unquestionably, with a company like Volkswagen (and Ferdinand Piech) behind it, a next-generation example of the Amphicar could have been a well-built, rather reliable, and reasonably affordable piece, improved upon in a few basic ways without spoiling the formula.
At Disney Springs outside of Disney World, there’s a place that offers rides on one of their four or five restored Amphicars for $125 a pop. That’s a big chunk of change, but as Ernest Hemingway said about pheasant hunting, some things are worth whatever you have to pay for it. Are there any pictures of Amphicars where the people on board aren’t grinning ear-to-ear? Any legal product that can do that is worth revisiting, don’t you think?
Why An Amphibious Cozy Coupe Is As Genius An Idea As It Is Terrible – The Autopian
Our Daydreaming Designer Re-Imagines Vector If They Made Amphibious Supercars – The Autopian
Finally, The Galileo Shuttlecraft Amphibious Camper You’ve Waited Years For – The Autopian
I knew somebody in the Hudson Valley that had one, was quite adamant that it was not the world’s worst car, wait a beat, but maybe the worst boat. Carried a trolling motor the way people carry spare tires and jumper cables.
I think something along the lines of a Boston whaler with wheels would be the way to go. I would rather the failure modes confine themselves to the over the road function rather than the over the water function.
Almost everyone would agree with that statement; the wheels-as-rudders thing especially was never a great idea. Still, with an amphibious car, the ratio of time it will be used on land versus water means that it’s far more important for it to be a batter car.
Well, I’ve had three wheels fall off, two cars catch fire while driving, a tie rod fall off on the cross Bronx expressway, and various engine failures, and mostly it was a matter of pull off the road and deal with it.
Adrift in the water or sinking would be much worse in many instances.
Likewise, with flying cars I would be much more picky about a failure in the flight mode than the car mode.
Actually, flying cars is the worst idea ever, I don’t know why some people are convinced otherwise.
I love the idea of a flying car.. there’s just way too many hurdles.
For starters, most people can barely handle one axis when driving. Adding a second axis is an immediate non-starter. Any flying car will have to be 100% autonomous when in flight mode.
Then, there’s the maintenance. Airplanes, for good reason, require an obscene amount of maintenance and inspections. Flying cars will need similar levels of inspection, maintenance, etc. That’s gonna cost some serious cash. It’s just like buying a Ferrari – the car is the cheap part of the purchase.
So I guess maybe they are a terrible idea. But I’m all for other people spending their money in hopes eventually someone figures it out. I’d love me a flying car. With any luck Goldie Wilson III will offer a hover conversion kit for my convertible for some skyway cruising…
Three sort of related thoughts:
Picture the rich idiots exiting cars and coffee in their Lambo or Mustang.
Now imagine that over your house.
My grandmother ( born in the 1890s) used to tell me about how her family had the first automobile in Franklin, Pennsylvania. When another family bought an automobile, they promptly crashed into each other because nobody knew what to do, unlike the horses that would avoid running into each other. Now imagine that over your house.
The way aircraft avoid collisions is by staying far away from each other. I imagine that if cars never got closer that 1000 feet of each other they would be much safer too. It’s not so much “flying cars” that scares me, it’s other people flying aircraft like they were cars
So horses are good at collision avoidance but Mustangs aren’t?
A series hybrid makes total sense for an amphibious car as it removes the mechanical complexity of having to switch power and controls from the wheels to the props: you simply have a generator providing electricity to either the propellor motors or wheel motors. A modest battery gives you an hour or two of quiet fun before the gas generator kicks in.
Using electric propellers makes reversing and thrust control easy. Electric-assisted steering still turns the mechanically-connected front wheels in water or out, but the encoder feedback from the steering motor controls the dual propeller motor thrust side to side for added turning control. A drive-by-wire throttle pedal is used for both road and water use (I know foot pedals are rare with boats, but they do exist).
Forget about getting up on plane and just keep it displacement hull. The point isn’t to wakeboard behind it, just get out on the water, so it’s fine that the wheels drag (no need to make high-flex suspension that can be pulled up into the hull).
As far as cars to start with, a Miata immediately springs to mind, but I think any leisure boat should at least fit four, so perhaps a BMW E30 convertible or similar 4-5 seat convertible.
Foot throttles are very common in high performance boats, called hot foots, so the driver can have both hands on the wheel. Above 60mph boats start to get … interesting. Look up chinewalking.
Having an automobile that looks like a miata or an e30 (sporty) yet cannot even get on plane (the exact opposite) seems incongruent. The styling is writing checks it wouldn’t be able to cash; a continuous disappointment.
Right, I’ve driven a hot foot boat, but I know most people think of a throttle lever when they think of recreational boats.
You’re right about the styling, but I strongly believe the added complexity of redoing the entire suspension geometry to make it retractable just so the wheels don’t drag would push the cost far above what anyone would consider “affordable”. Maybe an early 2000s Mercedes E-class or Audi A4 convertible?
I personally prefer boating at more a leisurely pace, so not getting on plane is hardly a disappointment for me. I would prefer an amphibious vehicle that’s a car that can drive on water versus a boat that can drive on land.
The Hot Foot throttle is prevalent on fast boats (flat bottom V-Drive w/ un-muffled, over the transom exhaust) that go out and blast across the lake for a few minutes and then return to shore. The driver will want to hang onto the wheel and be able to back off the throttle immediately. Cruising at a constant speed is done in boats w/a hand throttle.
I always thought that one of the most interesting things was that they had their factory in West Berlin, which must’ve made for an interesting supply chain as we call it now.
From what I understand, the tailfins were there partially to keep water from sloshing into the vents on the rear deck, which could lead to a variety of bad things.
I would either place the headlights further above the waterline, or make them really water resistant, or better yet both!
Did they make any of these that weren’t painted red?
Technically, the Thing didn’t have that much to do with the Kübelwagen, the latter was just a straight rebody of the Beetle, while the Thing used the wider Karmann Ghia floorplan and the heavier duty Type 2 bus front suspension
That babe standing by the car makes me want to be a Pirate…
How did the NC Miata not make the short list of “boat styled” cars?
I was thinking more about cars with a boat hull-shaped body with a flat cover on top
In graduate school, I had a Limnology Professor who did a lot of his research in an Amphicar. He could drive from the University to a lake, take samples, and then drive back to the university.
Well it is one of the most liminal vehicles ever. Flying cars and flying boats might have an edge.
“Deserves?” Aw, I love the original. It’s such a good lil’ friend and I need one pretty badly.
Dont you have a Type 4? That could be converted to an amphibian. We never took ours into the water but it skimmed over deep snow with ease.
Yep, I’ve got a 411! I still want the OG Amphicar, though.
Drives like a boat, floats like a car. I like this redesign a lot. It even works if it isn’t amphibious. The man who designed the prototype Amphicar was Hans Trippel who was obsessed with the idea of cars that could go on water. He made a slew of designs and prototypes for amphibious vehicles. His greatest legacy is gullwing doors. While similar doors had been used before, it was his design that Mercedes licensed for the 300SL. He conceived them to use on an amphibious car because he wanted doors where the opening would be entirely above the water line.
That rear end is very first gen Alfa Romeo Spyder. Very sexy!
The sides are kind of Hilman Hunter. De gustibus non est disputandum.
I think the height reduction might have its own problem as the hull on the original carries on quite a bit below the sill panels. In nautical things the old saw “there’s no replacement for displacement” actually holds true.
The front looks like a Renault 10 to me
We won for a simple reason: no one else entered in the category.
Hey, that’s how my Jaguar won its class in the local Jag show. You can be embarrassed or understand that it simply reflects that you put in the effort to be there when no one else did. The way I figure it is that even though my Jag isn’t one of the “cool kid” ones it’s still part of the marque’s history and deserves to be seen. In all honesty I only entered it for judging rather than exhibition because I wanted to have some brand experts tell me what I needed to work on to improve the car.
Awesome! I won “Best Jaguar Saloon” at a British-themed car show once with my low-dollar, Chevy-V8 conversion, sometimes daily-driven ’82 XJ6. All of the really nice Jags that showed up were two-doors, with the exception of a single newer X-type. So, I didn’t quite win by default, but I’d say close-enough.
Default is the two greatest words in the English dictionary.
According to your definition, David’s Leaf is not a real car. It is equivalent to 1/3 a car.
it’s a short distance low speed commuter device.
Like roller skates.
I worked with Gibbs on one of the systems for the Quadski (Quad / Jetski) and the Humdinga.
I never understood the point of the aquada. I’m not sure what it saved. At the time (early 2000’s), they were planning to sell it for $80k. At the time that was more than buying a Miata (great on land) and a 18foot-ish boat that would be great on water. You also would have had enough left over for a recent but used tow vehicle.
Or you could skip the tow vehicle, leave the boat at the marina and buy whatever else you wanted for a car.
I appreciate the efforts and the new design is excellent, but amphibious cars are just a gimmick. If I ever own a large property with a large pond or lake, I may get one just to drive into it every now and then. I feel like the drive to the water wouldn’t be great. The ride in the water would be awful. But driving into the water – THAT could be fun.
Heck, you can drive any car into water – once.
That’s amazing that you worked on that actual project! Yeah, I think even $80,000 (in early 2000s dollars) might have been tough to hit. Also, as I mentioned in the post, the Miata has a real top and locking doors.
Lyndon Johnson apparently had one and what you mentioned was supposedly the reason he had it; pretending that the brakes don’t work and driving into one of his ponds.
You may have had a Type 4 VW on your mind, but think you caught the soul of a SAAB. I like it, and think EV would greatly simplify.
It looks like a lot of cars; I was thinking even an Audi 100LS as well.
Maybe you can tackle one of those ridiculously terrible car/airplane combos next.
The Dutton Reef is an interesting thing, a repurposed Ford Fiesta. There was a bigger 4wd one too, the Surf, I think. They still looked odd, just not Amphicar odd.
That whole company was up for sale a little while ago.
The Entire Dutton Amphibious Car Company Is Up For Sale And You Could Buy It – The Autopian
Love it. It’s Quandt, not Quant, or no?
Indeed it is! I appreciate the correction.
Branson, MO had at least a couple running up and down off the Promenade. So fun to see them in action; hard to look at it without smiling!
I really like this.
Now do one for the modern day! (Like, the 8th gen Amphicar to be released in 2025 or something) My suggestion, make it a series hybrid so that it’s really easy to switch between the electric motor on the prop and the one on the wheels.
I was actually thinking of doing the next generation after this! That would likely flow into more modern models.
I would really love to see the speculative history of the successful Amphicar company through the SUV years to the contemporary BEV/phev age. I mean, the i3 is already made of non-corroding carbon fiber, right?
It’s an improvement, but it’s still an absolutely horrible boat. You called the Amphicar ‘slow’ compared to most cars, but as a boat it’s slower than almost any boat you can think of. I bet a kayak or a canoe with two normal people would be faster.
And since it’s so underpowered, and has the wheels and stuff hanging down creating a ton of drag (hydrodynamic drag is WAY more of a big deal than gaseous/aerodynamics), and it’s so heavy, it can’t even get on plane. It just acts like a displacement hull; ie like a tug boat or a barge.
That’s garbage tier boating, imho. Any decent boat should at least be able to get up and out of the water a bit so you can ride on the hull design, but this still wouldn’t do it. That’s where that weird miata thing actually got it right; it can actually act like a decent boat. And I guarantee the ‘car mode’ is light years better than the original amphicar’s performance.
Let’s go full James Bond while you’re at it, and make it a Lotus Esprit. Google tells me that Elon Musk owns it now, so maybe it’s the next Tesla product 🙂
You’re correct about it being a poor power boat (and missing quite a breadth of experience if reducing boating down to only planing hulls, after all, people have been called to ride upon the water for millennia before cheap power), but something like the Amphicar isn’t meant to be a replacement for a boat or be a boat at all, it’s a car that can access waterways and that in itself could be fun to some people and possibly even useful to get around traffic bottlenecks in some places.
As someone for whom the daily commute and most local trips for shipping and entertainment included at least one tunnel, this. I’ve spent a fair amount of time waiting for an accident to be cleared thinking of how nice it would be to drive directly across the river instead.
“and missing quite a breadth of experience if reducing boating down to only planing hulls”
Disagree. If it doesn’t plane, it’s not even a boat in my eyes, it’s a barge.
I love this yet part of me really wants this taken a step further.
Imagine if you will, a Morgan Amphicar. Ash framed with lapstrake siding!
I do think something with more visible wood (like an old Chris Craft) might be nice!
And imagine the subscription potential. “Every six months you get a sand down and new polyurethane coating applied.”
Aw, just slop more varnish on it.
Exactly.
The rear-end design appropriately resembles the “boat tail” early Alfa Spider. 🙂
For the boating enthusiasts here… can you help me understand which propulsion is better for an amphibious car – propeller vs. jet drive – and why?
Probably a propeller. Jet drive requires an intake under the car that could get clogged with crap from road use. They also tend to be a bit bulky – especially one sized to push a car through the water.
I’d say prop as well. Something like this would be terrible hydrodynamically, so there’s no need for a lot of power as speed would already be restricted and the wheels should provide clearance in shallows for a prop. A simple prop run off a shaft via a clutch or something along those lines would be much easier and simpler to package and require less maintenance.
It seems to me that there are three modes to think of in an amphibious car.
First obviously, obviously is the being a car part driving around on pavement that sort of thing. Presumably readers of the utopian know about stopping going around corners and all that other doing car stuff entails.
Secondly, there’s the being a boat part. That is also fairly simple. Primarily a boat needs to float, and travel through water, at least as fast as the currents in whatever body of water you are traveling in flow at. Otherwise, you could encounter a phenomenon known as going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Of course you may wish to go fast enough to get from point a to point B in a reasonable amount of time and be floating enough to survive more turbulent waters. If you want to go fast, V-hulls or hydrofoils are nice, but obviously get in the way of The third requirement.
The third requirement is that an amphibious boat/car needs to be able to transition from dry land to water and back again. That seems to be the problem that designers have the most problems with, especially singe a really good amphibious car should be able to transition without a boat ramp.
By the way, with rear wheel drive, how the hell does the Amphicar drive out of the water? The rear wheels aren’t going to have any traction until they are out of the water and the propeller doesn’t function out of the water. By all reports there isn’t that much speed on the water to enable just using inertia to run it onto shore. I never thought to ask about it.
Now I have an urge to buy a DUKW
The props can be operated with the drive wheels, so they provide thrust until there’s enough weight on the tires for traction. I’ve seen them coming out of the water and it seemed pretty seamless IIRC.
As long as it comes with a yachting cap, I’m all for it.
The de-branded VW wheels and hubcaps are a nice touch. They look more substantial than the Amphi-car originals – 15″ vs 14″?
And the flip-down compass would have been a nice feature even when not in the water. Can we make that a dry-land option, too?
Yes, Porsche used the debranded wheels as well.
That sounds like a good idea. Direction is more important that speed.
Of all the designs and redesigns you’ve done for us Bishop, this may be the best. Particularly the rear. Huge improvement.
Thanks! I’ve got a convention in Orlando soon and I’d like to get a ride in one (I’ve ridden in a Wisconsin Duck but not an Amphicar).
Do it. I did the ride earlier this year and it was so much fun!
Thanks! I’ve got a convention in Orlando soon and I’d like to get a ride in one (I’ve ridden in a Wisconsin Duck).
Not sure why that comment repeated but was going to say that just cutting the tailfins off of the original car makes a huge difference.