Amphicar - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Amphicar is an amphibious automobile, the first such vehicle mass-produced for sale to the public starting in 1961. The German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

vehicle was designed by Hanns Trippel

Hanns Trippel

Hans Trippel was the designer behind the Mercedes-Benz Gullwing's door, Troll and the Amphicar.Trippel was born on 19 July 1908 in the Darmstadt area and died 30 July 2001, possibly in Berlin. In 1934 he embarked upon a career as a racing driver. In retrospect he is better remembered for the...

and manufactured by the Quandt Group at Lübeck

Lübeck

The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...

and at Berlin-Borsigwalde. Its name is a portmanteau of "amphibious" and "car". The Amphicar was designed to be marketed and sold in the USA. Compared to most boats or cars, its performance was modest, and only 4000 were produced by 1965. Nevertheless, it is still among the most successful amphibious civilian autos of all time, and still often prized and preserved as novelty collectible automobiles today.

Product description (1966 Amphicar Model 770)

Engine: Triumph

Triumph Motor Company

The Triumph Motor Company was a British car and motor manufacturing company. The Triumph marque is owned currently by BMW. The marque had its origins in 1885 when Siegfried Bettmann of Nuremberg initiated S. Bettmann & Co and started importing bicycles from Europe and selling them with his own...

four-cylinder engine of 1147 cc, 8.0 compression ratio, rated at 38.3 bhp

Chassis/body
Overall length: 14.250 ft (4.343 m)

Overall width: 5.083 ft (1.549 m)

Height: 5.000 ft (1.524 m)

Turning circle: 36.833 ft (9.398 m)

Wheelbase: 7.000 ft (2.134 m)

Front track: 4.000 ft (1.219 m)

Rear track: 4.083 ft (1.245 m)

Fuel tank capacity: 10.5 imperial gallons

Empty weight: 2,315 lb (1050 kg) (includes fuel and oil)

Appearance
Front undersurface is slightly pointed and sharply cut away below. The wheels are set low, so that the vehicle stands well above ground level when on dry land. Front and rear bumpers are placed low on the body panels (but fairly high in relation to dry ground). The one-piece windshield

Windshield

The windshield or windscreen of an aircraft, car, bus, motorbike or tram is the front window. Modern windshields are generally made of laminated safety glass, a type of treated glass, which consists of two curved sheets of glass with a plastic layer laminated between them for safety, and are glued...

is curved. The foldable top causes the body style to be classified as cabriolet
Convertible
A convertible is a type of automobile in which the roof can retract and fold away having windows which wind-down inside the doors, converting it from an enclosed to an open-air vehicle...

. Its water propulsion is provided by twin propellers mounted under the rear bumper. The Amphicar is made of mild steel.

Performance

The powerplant was the 1147 cc (69 in³) engine from the British Triumph

Triumph Motor Company

Herald 1200

Triumph Herald

The Triumph Herald was a small two-door car introduced in 1959 by the Standard-Triumph Company of Coventry. Body design was by the Italian stylist Michelotti and the car was offered in saloon, convertible, coupé, van, and estate models....

. Many engines were tried in prototypes but the Triumph engine was "state of the art" in 1961 and had the necessary combination of performance, weight, cool running and reliability. Updated versions of this engine remained in production in the Triumph Spitfire

Triumph Spitfire

The Triumph Spitfire is a small English two-seat sports car, introduced at the London Motor Show in 1962. The vehicle was based on a design produced for Standard-Triumph in 1957 by Italian designer Giovanni Michelotti...

until 1980. The Amphicar engine had a power output of 43 hp (32 kW) at 4750 rpm slightly more than the Triumph Herald due to a shorter exhaust. Called the "Model 770", the Amphicar could achieve speeds of 7 knots in the water and 70 mph (110 km/h) on land. Later versions of the engine displaced 1296 cc and 1493 cc and produced up to 75 bhp. Some Amphicar owners have fitted these engines to improve performance.

One owner was quoted "It's not a good car and it's not a good boat, but it does just fine" largely because of modest performance in and out of water.
Another added, "We like to think of it as the fastest car on the water and fastest boat on the road."

In water as well as on land, the Amphicar steered with the front wheels, making it less maneuverable than a conventional boat.
Time's
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

Dan Neil called it "a vehicle that promised to revolutionize drowning", explaining, "Its flotation was entirely dependent on whether the bilge pump could keep up with the leakage."
In reality a well maintained Amphicar does not leak at all and can be left in water, parked at a dock side, for many days.

Amphicar adventures

In 1965, two Amphicars successfully navigated the Yukon River

Yukon River

The Yukon River is a major watercourse of northwestern North America. The source of the river is located in British Columbia, Canada. The next portion lies in, and gives its name to Yukon Territory. The lower half of the river lies in the U.S. state of Alaska. The river is long and empties into...

in Alaska.

Two Amphicars crossed the English Channel

English Channel

The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

in 1968 enduring 20 feet (6.1 m) waves and gale-force winds.

Howard Singer of San Diego, California sailed an Amphicar from the mainland to Catalina Island

Santa Catalina Island, California

Santa Catalina Island, often called Catalina Island, or just Catalina, is a rocky island off the coast of the U.S. state of California. The island is long and across at its greatest width. The island is located about south-southwest of Los Angeles, California. The highest point on the island is...

in the late 1970s.

An Amphicar appears in the 1968 film Inspector Clouseau, and the 1994 film Pontiac Moon
Pontiac Moon
Pontiac Moon is a 1994 adventure film directed by Peter Medak, and produced by Robert Schaffel and Youssef Vahabzadeh.The film stars Ted Danson as Washington Bellamy, a "pigheaded" science teacher in a small California town, and Mary Steenburgen as his wife Katherine. Danson was also one of 3...

.

History

Production started in 1961. From 1963 to 1965 cars were assembled from parts inventory built up in anticipation of sales of 20,000 per year. Production ended in 1965. Cars were titled in the year they actually sold rather than when they were produced, e.g. an Amphicar assembled in 1963 could be titled a 1968 if that was when it was first sold. Most Amphicars were sold in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Cars were sold in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

from 1964. Total production was 3,878 vehicles before the company folded. 99 right-hand drives were converted from left-hand drives. Some were used in the Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

police department and others were fitted for rescue operations.

Driveability

Although underpowered by modern standards, a well-maintained Amphicar can be an agile and pleasant vehicle to drive on both land and water. The fact that such a high proportion –more than 700 of the almost 4000 produced –have survived more than forty years is a testament to their high initial production quality, and to the lengths to which many owners will go in order to maintain and restore these vehicles.

Amphicar shows

During the fourth week in July, Amphicar owners convene at Grand Lake St. Marys

Grand Lake St. Marys

Grand Lake Saint Marys State Park is an Ohio state park, west of St. Marys, and south-east of Celina, south-west of Lima in the north-western part of the U.S. state of Ohio.Grand Lake covers in Mercer and Auglaize counties...

in western Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

. These events, and similar ones nationwide, are called "swim-ins".

External links

Official website of the International Amphicar Owners Club
400+ member Amphicar discussion forums with thousands of archived messages related to the Amphicar
Amphicars.com a UK site with a lot of photographs and information on the "Wonderful World of Amphicars"
Amphicar slideshow
AmphicarVentures; has photos, videos, history, and a list of Amphicar friendly lakes and ramps
Amphicar owner who gives tips on how to buy an Amphicar, database of current Amphicars for sale, photos of Amphicars, Videos of Amphicars, History of Amphicars, and other Amphicar stuff including a free Amphicar E-book; amphicar photos, amphicar videos, list of Amphicar registered owners

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