Dutton Commander

The Dutton Commander is a four-wheel-drive amphibious car designed in England by Tim Dutton, a long-established kit-car maker. It was later also sold under the name Amphijeep. A sealed glassfibre hull and body are built around the engine, gearbox, transfer case and axles of a Suzuki four-wheel drive. The original moulds were made for the Suzuki Samurai, and later cars were adapted to take parts from the newer Suzuki Jimny.

Design

The standard engine was the Suzuki 1.3-litre petrol unit. Some cars were built with a 1.9-litre diesel instead, which one owner found much noisier and a very tight fit in the engine bay. In the water the car is driven by a stainless-steel jet drive at up to about 6 mph (10 km/h). A small rudder linked permanently to the steering wheel lets it turn almost in its own length. High and low-range four-wheel drive makes getting in and out of the water straightforward. Equipment typically included three bilge pumps, an auxiliary oil cooler, a removable soft top and side windows, folding rear seats and a rear boarding platform. Owners' notes put the weight at about 1,260 kg, roughly 200 kg more than the donor Jimny.

In use

A British owner who used his diesel Commander for survey work on a lake reported in 2004 that it cruised happily at 65 to 70 mph and had reached 80 mph (about 130 km/h). He also noted problems with engine temperature, noise and transfer-box whine at speed, and said the car floated with a list towards the heavy diesel side. A Commander S1 built in England in 2000 was used for some years in Costa Rica before moving to the United States, where it was offered on eBay. An S2 registered new in November 2003 was later advertised in Britain.

Successors

In 2011 Dutton replaced the Commander with the Jimny-based Dutton Surf. A separate design, the Dutton Mariner, also appears among the archive's pictures.