About

Hans Rosloot is a highly respected auto historian who started the Amphiclopedia website purely for his own enjoyment and built it into a huge archive of amphibious vehicle material. Through ill health, Hans found the website becoming increasingly difficult to manage and eventually, reluctantly, closed it down. He handed the information to his good friend Rene Pohl, another prominent figure in the amphib world.

I saw my first amphib when I was about 18 years old, in 1984. It was a converted VW Beetle chugging up the Beaulieu River in the UK, and the seed of interest in amphibs was sown.

It was many years later that I saw a photo online of a British guy who built his own road-legal amphib camper in his back garden. This really piqued my interest and I managed to get in contact with him (Nick Topping), and we had many a fascinating email back and forth. When Nick found out that I live on the edge of Southampton Water he came down and took me and my family out for a ride in his amazing ‘Amphibus’. There was no going back for me after that, and I have had a keen interest in amphibs ever since.

Like many amphib enthusiasts from around the world, I spent countless hours trawling through the Amphiclopedia website and was really sad when it was shut down. I eventually found out that Rene Pohl had the information, and he very kindly offered me the opportunity to resurrect the site. I started, but it was far too much work and eventually I admitted defeat and gave up.

It was only recently that it occurred to me that, with the advent of AI, there was a possibility of almost automatically collating all the information into a database which could then be uploaded to a website. A coder friend of my son’s, Sam Bailey, very kindly offered to collate the Amphiclopedia material with AI and help create the new website. I hope old and new amphib enthusiasts get as much enjoyment out of this as I have.

Finally, I have never met Hans (and would love to one day), but I would like to thank him for all his hard work and effort bringing all this material together, and also Rene for allowing me to use it. If it wasn’t for Hans and Rene, Amphib Info would not exist for us all to enjoy.

— Chip Wilson

Contact

Corrections, suggestions, new photographs, and privacy or copyright concerns are all welcome. Email amphibinfo@gmail.com.