State Trooper’s Car Is at Home on Land, Equally at Home Making Waves : Amphicar: It is perhaps the oddest automobile model ever to come off an assembly line. The German-built floater has an increasingly organized cult of enthusiasts.
Tail fins, rag top, chrome fenders--John McGreen’s car looks like it shouldn’t be splashing hood-first into a chilly Adirondack lake.
And when the half-submerged car starts loudly puttering away across Great Sacandaga Lake, leaving a turgid and frothy wake, amused bystanders look on with wonder.
“It’s the best, driving into water, because it feels like something you shouldn’t do,” McGreen explained behind the wheel of his . . . what?
A car? A boat? Actually it’s an “Amphicar,” and it’s a little of both. It looks like a scaled-down ’57 Chevy with twin propellers where a bumper would normally be.
The Amphicar is perhaps the oddest car model ever to come off an assembly line. But the German-built floating car has been out of production for 26 years, leaving behind an increasingly organized cult of enthusiasts.
“When I saw this I thought, ‘I am going to get the old boat I wanted. I am going to get the old car I wanted,’ ” Jeffrey Sweet said as he took his car for a float.
Sweet, a 28-year-old New York state trooper from Gloversville, N.Y., first became fascinated by the aquatic car when he saw one in a parade as a child. He finally tracked one down in Michigan last year and bought it after taking a test float in--no joke--Lake Cadillac.
He started the National Amphicar Club--motto, “United We Float, Divided We Sink”--last year to bring devotees of the odd-duck car together.
Invented by Hans Trippel, a German who helped create amphibious vehicles during World War II, it was produced by the West German auto manufacturer Amphicar from 1961 to 1968. Despite its German engineering, Amphicar’s vehicle apes the lines of its eponymous classic American auto design. The single model made in those years came with tail fins, chrome-lined headlights, a white convertible top and a stylized cursive “Amphicar” squiggled on the side panel.
Owners of the refurbished cars usually add to the nostalgic ‘50s effect by adding shiny hubcaps and thick whitewall tires.
The first tip-offs that Amphicars are definitely NOT a typical Detroit classic are the twin propellers behind the rear tires and a front end that slopes off just below the bumper--just like a boat. A tiny fog light juts out of the hood.
Getting an Amphicar into water is as easy as rolling off a landing. A shift knob engages the propellers and the front tires act as rudders. Special seals around the doors and the Triumph-Herald four-cylinder engine keep water from sinking or stalling the car.
Amphicars can chug along at 10 to 12 m.p.h. in water, compared to a top land speed of 75 m.p.h. The Amphicar’s pokiness, combined with its goofy looks and need for meticulous maintenance, made it a butt of jokes from car connoisseurs back in the ‘60s.
“They used to say it’s not a good car and it’s not a good boat. I think it’s a great car and a great boat,” Sweet said. “If anyone thinks they have a car that handles better in water, bring it down here.”
In fact, tales of the Amphicar’s sturdiness abound. One crossed the English Channel, another floated down the frosty waters of the Yukon River. Oceans are no problem for the car, although owners complain of waves crashing onto the windshield.
Only about 3,000 were sold in the United States in the 1960s, before tougher federal safety regulations sunk new sales in the United States. Only about 500 or so are thought to be around in the United States. Devotees place ads in old car bibles like Hemmings Motor News and keep an ear open for tales of old floating cars kept sitting up on blocks.
Prices range from hundreds of dollars for junkers to as high as $24,000 for a meticulously reconditioned Amphicar complete with a boat horn on the hood.
Hugh Gordon, who sells Amphicar parts in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., said his business remains brisk because unlike other show cars, Amphicars are constantly being used.
“They’re not show cars in the sense that you have a Ferrari sitting in your living room . . . and you’re looking at it because it’s macho and sexy and everything else,” said Gordon, whose own wanderings in an Amphicar once left him adrift for two days off the coast of Mexico.
It was that difference from other cars that frustrated Sweet. At auto shows, where Camaros compete against muscle cars and Bel Airs vie for nostalgia prizes, there’s no “floating car” contest. Sweet’s solution: an annual “swim in” for Amphicar enthusiasts.
Seven cars plunged into Great Sacandaga Lake last summer at the first swim in, looking like a motorcade moving through a flood. Back on shore, owners swapped amphibious travel tales and refurbishing tips.
John Davis, a Tulsa, Okla., resident who took part in the plunge, sniffed at the idea that the Amphicar is inferior to cars that move faster or look better.
“Those other cars are boring. Amphicar is not boring,” Davis said. “You always generate excitement.”
