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Half car, half boat, the Amphicar is like nothing else on the road or at sea. We look at the unusual history of this unique automotive amalgam.
That’s Portmanteau, Not Pontoon
1968 Amphicar Model 770 – carsforsale.com | Shop Amphicar 770 on Carsforsale.com
The Amphicar is the spork of automotive history. One part boat, one part car, capable of driving and sailing, but not particularly great at either one. Today’s Cool Car Find is a 1968 Amphicar 770. It’s literally an amphibious car and one of the most unique automotive creations of the 20th century. What looks like the product of an early 1960s ad man’s fever dream is in fact a relic of WWII refashioned by a German manufacturer for a civilian US market easily enamored by novelty. The Amphicar is one of those singular products you never knew the world needed until you saw it. Why would we need a car that’s also a boat? The question the Amphicar poses is: why aren’t all our cars also boats?
What the Heck is the Amphicar?
The Amphicar was a two-door, four-seat amphibious car built by German manufacturer the Quandt Group with help from Deutch Waggen Maschinenfabrik (DWM) from 1960 through 1965 and marketed from 1961 through 1968. Of the 3,878 built, 3,046 were imported to the US at an initial MSRP of $2,800 USD.
The Amphicar was powered by a rear-mounted 1,147cc Triumph four-cylinder good for 43 horsepower. On land, this engine sent power via its four-speed manual transmission to the rear wheels and allowed the Amphicar to achieve up to 70 mph. On the water, the Amphicar’s two propellers could get the boat/car up to 6.5 knots (around 7 mph). With the pull of a lever, the two doors of the car sealed shut to prevent water leaking in, and the car was now seaworthy.
WWII Origins
The Amphicar has its beginnings just prior to WWII with the first amphibious car designs from one Hans Trippel. Trippel created his SG6 in 1935 with the first production version built in 1937. A military version began production in 1939. In 1940, in the occupied Alsace region, Trippel was given leave over the Bugatti factory to produce SG6s for the German war effort.
Around this same time, Porsche designer Erwin Komenda was working on his own amphibious car design, the Schwimmwagen, initially based on the Küblewagen, VW’s version of the Jeep and which later became the VW Thing. The Schwimmwagen proved the superior design, the Trippel SG6 fell out of favor, and Volkswagen and Porsche factories began producing Schwimmwagens, over 14,000 in total, for the German war machine.
After the war, Hans Trippel did three years in a French internment camp for collaboration. But once he was out, he resumed his engineering career. A historical aside here: A stint at Mercedes-Benz saw Trippel contribute the idea of a roof hinge for the 300 SL’s gullwing doors as part of Rudolf Uhlenhaut’s design team. It’s also been noted in histories of the 300SL that Jean Bugatti had come up with a “butterfly door” angled design back in 1939. So, it’s possibly not a coincidence that it was Trippel, who’d taken over the Bugatti factory during the war, later “invented” the gullwing door for the 300SL in the early 1950s.
Sure, the 300 SL is cool, but Trippel still dreamed of his old SG6 and the Schwimmwagen and brought the idea to industrialist the Quandt Group and the Amphicar was born.
LBJ’s Favorite Car
The Amphicar was primarily exported from German to the US, with a few sold in the U.K. as well. The car, while never a huge seller, did get more than its share of press attention. Among its American admirers was Pres. Lyndon Banes Johnson. So the story goes, the President had an Amphicar that he liked to drive around his ranch and his favorite thing to do with friends, visitors, and unsuspecting reporters was to take them on a ride in his little weird German car. Along the drive, Pres. Johnson would head straight for the lake on his property shouting that the brakes were out, panicking his passengers, only to splash into the water and float on, chuckling to himself.
This Cool Car
1968 Amphicar Model 770 – carsforsale.com | Shop Amphicar 770 on Carsforsale.com
Our specific Cool Car Find is a 1968 Amphicar 770. As a 1968 model, this car would have been built from parts left over after official production had ceased in 1965. With just 688 miles, this car is in exceptional condition and has a lot of life (and fun) left in it.
Indeed, the Amphicar has surprisingly broad appeal. It’s perfect for a multi-day fishing trip, hopscotching the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota. Doing some duck hunting? The Amphicar has you covered. Just want a quirky vehicle to put smiles of the faces of your grandkids? It doesn’t get more whimsical than the Amphicar.
I’m not sure of what year, but a school teacher in Taylor, Michigan, near Detroit, had an Amphicar. He was going to the Upper Peninsula, and when he got to the Machinac Bridge, he went to a boat ramp, and made the trip across the water to a boat ramp. There were a couple of police waiting for him, and they gave him a ticket for avoiding paying the toll for crossing the bridge,even though he didn’t cross the bridge. He even explained that the car had a current boat license. A couple of weeks later, he went to court over the ticket. He explained that he had a boat license, so the judge dismissed the ticket and chewed out the cop who had written it.
Cool 😎 story 🚤