Humber Hexonaut

The Humber Hexonaut was an amphibious 6x6 prototype built by Humber Ltd of Coventry early in the Second World War. Only three were made.

Design

The Hexonaut has two Hillman 14 hp engines, each with its own Hillman gearbox, one driving the three wheels on each side. It has no steering wheel: the driver steers with levers, braking one side like a tracked vehicle. Afloat, the treads of the tyres act as small paddles for both propulsion and steering.

It was designed to be carried in the Allies' standard transport aircraft, the C-47 Dakota, which explains its unusually narrow body: 11 ft 3 in (3.43 m) long, 4 ft 4 in (1.32 m) wide and 6 ft 3 in (1.9 m) high. It weighs roughly three tons, is unarmed and unarmoured, and carries a crew of two plus eight men or up to a ton of stores.

Survivor

The one known survivor was sold after the war to a logging company and worked in the forest until the 1950s. It was later displayed in a museum in the United States, photographed in 2008 at the National Military History Center in Auburn, Indiana, and was subsequently offered for sale.