Saturday, February 22, 2014

All things old are new again.

Gibbs Humdinga amphibious truck sailing toward production
Anybody else remember the Schwimmwagen?

8 comments:

GaryM said...

If I lived in New Orleans I believe I'd have to have one of those. Of course the cops would confiscate it as soon as it was needed. It would be great for looting flooded Wal Mart stores.

Anonymous said...

Or the SEAP.
http://www.allisons.org/ll/4/Ford/GPA/

Anonymous said...

I use to live on a flood plain. The local fire company, of which I was a member, had a WEASEL for evacuating people from flooded homes. A neighboring fire company, had a DUCK, which was, in my opinion, much better suited for emergencies. Either of these, in an upgraded version, (more powerful engines and propulsion systems) would be better than this new concept. The WEASEL could easily mount a .50 caliber machine gun, or even a 106 recoiless. The DUCK could mount a quad .50, 106 recoiless, GE mini-gun, or 81 mm mortar. But, in keeping with modern military doctrine, why stay with a proven concept when you have an opportunity to spend huge amounts of money?

Howie Honky said...

Well... I wish them luck. Right here in our home town, back in the 60s a fellow had a novelty he'd bought somewhere, called - if memory serves - an 'amphi-car'. Looked like a little Renault convertible, but had propellers that could be engaged at the rear and the 'steering' was done by the front wheels. He took it out to a lake and found that it worked like a champ for about ten minutes, then started taking on water through the wheel wells and into the interior. It still worked OK on land, though, just looked a bit odd.

Harry Spitz said...

The new is prettier. I hope they can sell them!

Anonymous said...

Howie, he must have bought it used. Amphicars were notorious rust buckets if they actually saw a lot of water. Probably the main reason why most of them no longer exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphicar

Terrapod said...

Dont forget the Amphicar and the Duck based on the deuce and a half

pdxr13 said...

Runs on Diesel. Has a 50 gallon tank. "mixed range" is 200 miles. 4mpg ?

How much fussy maintenance is required after each fording/swimming adventure?

Neat.