Aquajeep

The Aquajeep was an amphibious 4x4 kit car sold in the form of construction plans and a build licence around 2004. Home builders were to fit a steel body to a donor four-wheel-drive vehicle; the prototype, built in the UK in 2002, used a Range Rover Classic because they were cheap there.

Design

According to its promoters, almost any left- or right-hand-drive 4x4 could serve as donor, preferably one with coil springs, and with any petrol or diesel engine. The body used an "external chassis" of 100 x 50 mm box section with sheet steel and alloy panels and flotation tanks, and was intended to be built with only a welder, an engine hoist and ordinary garage tools in about 100-120 hours.

Several ways of driving it in the water were offered: a guarded propeller on the rear propshaft, a propeller shaft from a power take-off, a water jet, a small 10 hp outboard, or a 10 hp Beta Marine inboard diesel. Afloat it steered with its front wheels, though a simple rudder was recommended, and top speed in the water was about 6 knots (11 km/h).

Controversy

In 2004 Mike Ryan, builder of the SeaRoader amphibian, warned the Amphicar-lovers mailing list that the Aquajeep's website used SeaRoader pictures and text and that its plans were unauthorised copies of the discontinued SeaRoader plans. The photographs in this folder may therefore show the SeaRoader rather than an independent design.