Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/05/07/its-a-boat-its-a-car-it.html
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LBJ had one of those. He would show it off to guests as a regular car, then drive it into the lake while screaming “no brakes!”
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An Amphicar is totally on my Short List.
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Personally, I’m holding out until I can find one of those Lotus-Submarine cars on the used market.
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I’m pretty sure Maxwell Smart had one of these.
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I’d settle for a shoe phone.
Actually, right now, I’d settle for a Cone of Silence repurposed for Rona protection.
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You can rent these for $125 at Disney Springs. They supply the driver.
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My neighbor convert auto bodies to boats. While I realize these are not ‘autoboats’ as they do not drive on land, but they were really cool. From an old 57 MGA, to a Dodge Neon, to his most memorable, a 62 pink, Caddy Eldo convertible he called “NautiGirl”. He used to give bayside, sunset tours off of Islamorada. Cool boats (I love boats!) from cool cars (well, 2 out of 3).
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I had forgotten about that. I think they had it on Top Gear at some point. I have a vague memory of Clarkson yelling, “HAMMOND!” as he plunged into the water.
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Meh… the Germans were way ahead of them
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Popular among the bank-robbing fraternity, as I remember.
(The same guy was involved.)
This is one of those ideas like flying cars that never quite go away because of the romance of it. Thus, every few years, another entrepreneur decides “THIS time we can do it”. Like flying cars, they always fail for the same reason. You end up with something that is really really bad at both tasks. As a car they are top heavy, handle poorly, are underpowered, get lousy mileage, and have odd interior finishes, to name a few issues. As boats, they are glacially slow, can’t handle any amount of chop, handle poorly, are too heavy, and aren’t very stable. But hey- maybe next time will be the one.
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Excuze me but ze Amphicar was German, jawohl! 
I would’nt want to own one though. Maybe if I had to ford a river on my daily commute.
The big change between the Schwimmwagen and the Amphicar is that the Amphicar had a gearbox (with a reverse gear) between the engine and the propeller, while the Schwimmwagen propeller was driven directly from the crankshaft.
This means that the Amphicar could reverse in water. A Schwimmwagen driver who wanted to go backwards had to either engage the land drive in reverse and use the wheels as paddle wheels, or use the canoe paddle that was standard equipment. It’s not clear which was faster.
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I was fascinated by the idea of being able to drive into a lake or the ocean.
It’s a beautiful machine, but this thing will not go (for very long) in the ocean before you capsize. Even in a lake, it better be a small one, with no wind!
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There must be a small club here in Ontario Canada, possibly in the Barrie or Orillia area. I’ve been fishing in the narrows at the north end of Lake Simcoe and have seen a group of 2 or 3 of these vehicles drive into the lake, make a few circles, then drive out again. Might have been 4 one year, which has to be near the max. # of these still working.
They look like they sit very low in the water and wouldn’t take much to swamp. My concern troll is always worried something bad is going to happen.
Related to this, I’ve “swam” an M113 APC on two occasions. They sit even lower in the water. Can’t believe that tactic is used successfully very often.
