Caserta Pontiphian

The Pontiphian was an amphibious vehicle concept by Tony Caserta, a retired Grumman engineer who had worked on the Apollo lunar module. An Associated Press report describes the opening of a 4,000 sq ft garage in Syosset on Long Island, New York, where Caserta and his son Charles planned to build the first prototype, expected to be ready for testing in about a year. Early work was funded by $320,000 in grants from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Caserta described the design as being 'like a Lego set': interchangeable upper bodies could be plugged onto the amphibious base to make a bus, truck, motorhome, ambulance or rescue vehicle. Pontoons sliding out 15 ft (about 4.6 m) were claimed to keep it stable in waves of up to 13 ft.

His main proposal was to equip school buses with pontiphian technology so that, in a natural disaster or terrorist attack, Long Island's 2.7 million residents could be evacuated across the water to Connecticut or New Jersey in under 24 hours, using existing boat ramps. He estimated the conversion would add about 20 per cent to the cost of a school bus and that the island's roughly 7,000 buses could be converted over a decade.