Saturday, May 2, 2015
Short takes: Amphicar
Normally I try to get multiple shots of a particular subject, but spotting one of these is so rare, I'm breaking my rule on this one. We spotted it in Kenmore this morning. I have not seen one in person since I was a kid. In the small town I grew up in, we lived down the street from the owner of the Pepsi distributor and they had a blue one. Pepsi had some sort of promotion program in the 70's where their could get an Amphicar to promote Pepsi.
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Isn't it interesting that they never made a coupe version (that I know of)? I wonder why. Surely that would have resolved some of the design issues. Too much weight up high? These things I ponder with my tiny brain...
ReplyDeleteGianni – I am a lurker on Daily Turismo and saw your comments on the $10K commuter car and made my way to your blog. The photo of the Amphicar jumped out at me right away, as I live in Lake Forest Park. Will the construction in Kenmore ever end?
ReplyDeleteFunny, I followed the auction of your GTI on BaT closely. My first almost new car was a 1989 16v GTI, also white. I bought it from a VW dealer with 3,000 miles on it, and kept it 12 years. I grew up in Westmoreland County, PA, where your car was built.
Regarding the Amphicar, that's a rare sight to see driving around, although you do see them at car shows. It seems like this is the perfect car for people around here who rely on the ferries and floating bridges. I was thinking someone should come out with a modern electric version, which would have a lower CG.
Yeah, it was really neat to see it out in traffic. It pulled off at the Starbucks in Lake Forrest Park. I wonder if they were going to head to the boat launch after getting a cup.
DeleteI'm not even sure of what they are doing at that intersection by Uplake, other than messing up traffic.
Did you ever go visit the VW factory when you lived there?
Do you think they got the cup so they could bail out the water pouring in? Hopefully, they got a Grande Latte with skim for that.
DeleteK2 - Yes, I would think some sort of bailing device would be appropriate for a 50 year old amphibious vehicle that sits low in the water.
ReplyDeleteGianni - nope, never made it to the factory. It was a VW factory right around the time I was finishing up high school and then going to college (shortly thereafter it was converted to a Sony TV factory). I knew a couple of guys that were I guess three years ahead of me in high school who graduated and got jobs there. It seems like a tour is something my Dad would have thought of doing, but for whatever reason, maybe it was too close to home (or too far, about 40 miles from home), but I never saw the inside of it. Reminds me of when I first started coming out here 25 years ago with my eventual wife to visit her family. I wanted to go see the Boeing factory. They thought it was a curious thing, given all the other things that one can do around here, but my future wife accommodated me. I still take my kids on occasion to see the factory, and my in-laws still don't get it.
Funny, I've lived here all my life and I've never been on the Boeing factory tour. I should go before it is moved to South Carolina.
DeleteThe Boeing tour is well worth the effort for any sort of gear head, and on top if it there is a nice museum attached to it. For some reason when he was younger my son really wanted to go. More to see the world's largest building I think than the assembly line. He had to wait a year or so until he was 4 ft tall, but was duly impressed when he did get to see it.
ReplyDeleteCame across this today, bopping around the interwebz.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amphicruiser.com/