The title says it all: I love Amphicars. The little West German-built car-boats were not exactly a smashing success when new, but they are highly collectible today. I recall seeing one at a car show twenty-odd years ago, but none recently. That’s why I was happy to see this great example on the Cohort, posted by r0b0tr10t. And looking especially sharp in red and white!
So when’s the last time you saw an Amphicar?
A few years ago at the Lyndon Johnson Ranch near Austin, Texas. It’s displayed in a glassed-in outbuilding together with a couple of Lincoln Continental convertibles and some other vehicles.
I’ve seen a few, there’s a supplier of Amphicar parts in Orillia (50 miles from my house) and the Santa’s Village park bought a few Amphicars new to give rides, although I don’t think the experiment lasted long.
So there’s probably a naturally high concentration of them around here, just like Studebakers.
That being said they are not my favorite, as they are a relatively poor boat and a relatively poor car. One thing I’ve learned in my machine design career is to not try to do too many things with the same machine, or you will have an expensive machine that does several things badly.
Besides, when I’ve seen them for sale it’s in the $80k range, which could buy any number of great old cars plus any number of fully functional power boats.
The Motor Show at Earl’s Court London around 64/65ish Ithink.$80K would buy a lot of classic cars I’d sooner have.
Love it, love it, love it! Such a beautiful specimen of an interesting vehicle that actually worked as advertised.
There was a dealer for these in the St. Louis area once, a very long time ago, and I was so intrigued, I asked my parents to stop so I could take a look – I think I was 10-12…
Peaked my yet-to-grow passion for cars. Dad’s 1960 Impala he bought in May, 1965 did it for good.
I always wondered what it would be like to drive and own one. Suppose I’ll never find out.
I’ve seen one around Pawtucket, RI; it sometimes comes to the “cruise night” at Slater Park. It definitely stands out among the Tri-Fives and Corvettes.
Cool car/boat, though as they say, probably neither the best car nor the best boat!
Fairly common on the Maine coast in their day (common meaning that you might see one – it’s a relative term!) Well-to-do summer residents liked them as toys, but the ocean water rusted these amazingly fast.
Perfect, though, for the elderly paraplegic doctor up the road from our house – he loved fishing! His wife would help him from his wheelchair into the Amphicar at home, and he could drive to the beach, launch, and fish to his heart’s content, before driving home. Nice to see something so well adapted to a purpose.
But, a lousy car, and a worse boat!
Sure it’s not a great car or a great boat but I just love, love, love these things.
I tend to gravitate toward the unique and downright strange in automobiles. If I had the money I’d have one of these in my garage or dock just because.
Ive never seen a complete one in person. But a while back I did see one in a large crate along with a bunch of smaller crates on a car hauler on the outskirts of Halifax. Nova Scotia.
Haven’t seen one since I was a kid.
A dead-end street our school bus went down (it was a lo-o-ong street) for a stop…had one in a driveway somewhere. I was about ten years old.
First, and only, time, I ever saw one in the flesh. FWIW…I never saw that red one running around in town, either. And we were about five miles away from Lake Erie…hard to say why it tied up there.
I see them quite a bit in Leelanau County, MI, and have seen them “launch” into the water. This past weekend, I saw one in Leland, MI, with seaweed hanging off the port prop!
Here is one in the water in Lake Leelanau.
Hood detail.
This is one of those cars that I really love – so long as other people own them. I would have no desire to actually own one, and especially not for $80K. However, I want others to lovingly maintain these because I get such a charge out of one whenever I see it.
In the early 1960’s, the Nova Scotia company my father worked for was considering acquiring a franchise for the Amphicar. A red one dutifully appeared in Lunenburg, NS, and was test driven in the protected waters of Mahone Bay. Most of us kids at the time got a ride in it. No word about how it dealt with salt water. The company passed on the franchise.
My favorite Amphicar sighting was this photo of an Amphicar on a yacht, moored near Ground Zero in Manhattan. I took this shot September 11, 2010.
There was a red Amphicar in my neighborhood (White Sox Park) on the South Side of Chicago in the mid ’60s. Never saw it move. I felt sorry for the owner and I drove a ’60 Plymouth. As Doug D said, and I paraphrase, “a really crappy car and a worse boat”. Maybe the other way around.
In the town that I grew up in Michigan, a person had 2 or 3 of these in the yard… This was the late 70’s to mid-80’s… Always wondered what became of them.
More recently,in 2006 while on an evening Seine River cruise in Paris, I spied one in the deck of a yacht (maybe the same one in Hank’s pic?); I also have the pic I took around somewhere.
Last week I got a picture of this one on the sandbar at Torch Lake Michigan being pulled over by the Antrim County Sherif
And I would be remiss in not mentioning the “car-boat” driven by J.W. Pepper in Live And Let Die (image from imcdb.org):
Remember seeing one many years ago. looks like it would not take much to swamp it. Anyway read somewhere that LBJ had one on his ranch in Texas and had much fun driving it straight into a lake with his guests on board to their great surprise.
I had what i assume was a dealer of Ampicars not far from where I grew up in Minnesota.
At least I think he was a dealer, though I place the year about 1967, after they quit making them? Anyway there were four of these Ampicars parked on his lot.
A rather well-off neighbor of ours had a new one as a toy when i was about 10-ish. Powder blue, white interior. We were pretty fascinated by it, and it always drew a crowd when it was out of the garage.
There are a handful of them in Kenosha which are spotted occasionally. This pair was at the downtown Kenosha car show last September.
Wow, I haven’t seen one of these for years. When I was in high school back in the sixties, the local Chrysler/Plymouth dealer had one sitting on the used car lot of his dealership; if I remember correctly it was white and it seemed to be there for a long time.