mgs
[Top] [All Lists]

I want an Aquada! (new amphibious LBC)

To: mgs@autox.team.net
Subject: I want an Aquada! (new amphibious LBC)
From: Tab Julius <tab@penworks.com>
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2003 04:07:41 -0400
Car page at:
http://www.aquada.host.goodtechnology.net/aquada/homepage.jsp?flash=true


News story at:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030903/ap_on_hi_te/britain_amphibious_car_3

In London, New Sportscar Doubles As Boat
Wed Sep 3, 6:32 PM ET

By JACK GARLAND

LONDON - Britain's newest sports car took a test drive Wednesday, zooming 
back and forth across the waters of the Thames River in pure James Bond style.

The Aquada can hit speeds of 100 miles an hour on land - and once it hits 
water, the wheels retract into the wheel arch, jets kick in, and the car is 
suddenly a boat.

Once waterborne it can reach speeds of 30 miles per hour, according to 
Gibbs Technologies, the British firm that designed it.

With a sticker price of about $235,000, the convertible has no doors in 
order to avoid leaks. Drivers and passengers must jump over the side to get 
into the car - just like a boat.

"With this you can have a really good car on the road, and an exciting toy 
that can tow a water skier, that you can commute to work with, that you can 
go to St. Tropez with and take two girlfriends," the firm's chairman Alan 
Gibbs told reporters at the car's test drive on London's Thames on Wednesday.

The car is part of the Aquada Bond series, but the company couldn't say 
whether that is a veiled reference to James Bond and the 
sports-car-cum-submarine that the superspy operated in the movie "The Spy 
Who Loved Me."

The vehicle can switch to cruising on water within seconds, and the drive 
mechanism switches to power a jet that propels the vehicle, according to 
the company.

"The design requirements for the Aquada were daunting, but the technology 
has delivered and demonstrates the quality of British engineering," said 
Gibbs, a New Zealand entrepreneur who built his first fast amphibian 
vehicle in 1995, before moving his company to Britain in 1999. He said the 
Aquada was the product of a seven-year development program and 60 newly 
patented technologies.

One hundred of the cars are being built and will sell at the end of this year.

///  or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
///  Archives at http://www.team.net/archive


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>