Amphibians
I once read an breakdown of why guys are attracted to certain kinds of things. If a thing meets one or more of the following criteria, a guy will want one.
- It should be a thing.
- It should be a thing that you can put other things in.
- It should be a thing that goes from Point A to Point B.
If you got something that does all that, you’ve got a product you can sell to guys. Cars meet these guidelines. So do boats.
And so do cars that are also boats. Amphibious cars–now that’s a thing.
There may be earlier examples of amphibious cars, but it was World War II that really created a demand for mass production of amphibious vehicles. The Germans needed a scout car that cross streams if no bridges were left standing, so they came up with easy-to-translate-even-if-you-don’t-speak-German Schimmwagen, aka the VW model 166. Vaguely similar to the more familiar German jeep, the Kübelwagen, with a bit of the rounded curves of the Beetle or perhaps a glimpse of the yet-to-be-born dune buggies, the more-rounded Schwimmwagen has a flip-down propeller that pushes it along at a few miles per hour. About 15 thousand were built, and about 125 remain today, cared for by European enthusiasts, mostly, or in museums.
The US amphibious icon of WWII was the DUKW Amphibious Landing Vehicle, or the Duck. Used to unload men and material on to European beaches before ports had been secured, the Duck got a lot more water use than the Schwimmwagens did. Some enterprising history buff has a fleet of WWII vintage Ducks giving tours of Boston’s streets and the Charles River, as do other companies in cities with waterfronts.
After the war, the German designer of the Schwimmwagen thought there would be a market for civilian version and the Amphicar was built and marketed for the public from 1961 to 1968, but sadly, I was too young to be a customer then, so the company folded. Just under 4,000 were built, of which about 1000 are supposed to still be around.
The problem so far is that all of these vehicles have been not very good on land as cars, and not that great in the water as boats. But it’s OK, because it’s both a car and boat. Jack of all trades, master of none.
Not long ago, New Zealand inventor Alan Gibbs thought, hey, this is the future, why can’t a I have an amphibious car that kicks butt as a car and a boat? That would be the Aquada , made by Gibbs technologies. The Aquada looks cool, if a bit funky, in having the driver seat in the middle, rather than on the right or the left. Makes it easier to have one bikini model sitting on either side of you, I guess. You know, for balance. The Aquada goes 100 mph on land and 30 mph on water, and Virgin’s Richard Branson set a record for crossing the English Channel in one. Gibbs must be doing well, as he also makes a model called the Humdinga that looks sort of like a Hummer and a Quadski , which is an off-road quad that converts to a jet-ski.
Gibbs better watch his back, though. In England, former stone-carver David Baker is working on a vehicle called the Landshark, a 3-wheeled tadpole-shaped car, that will be, in Mr. Baker’s words, “the world’s fastest and neatest amphibious vehice.” He’s claiming 200 mph on land and 50 mph in water. Perfect for delivering candygrams, I would think.
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