Kudryachkov Triton

The Triton is a planing amphibious car designed and built by Dmitry Trofimovich Kudryachkov. He was a professional musician at a Moscow musical theatre, not an engineer. He set out to overcome the two classic weaknesses of amphibious cars, low water speed and poor seaworthiness, by giving his vehicle the hull lines of a fast motorboat rather than a car body. The first Triton appeared around 1980 and was featured in the magazine Tekhnika Molodezhi in 1983. After expert assessment by the NAMI automotive institute, it was registered both as a road vehicle with the GAI traffic police and as a small craft with the GIMS boat inspectorate, which the articles describe as unique.

Design

The hull has an oak and pine frame and is shaped like a planing boat. A GAZ-21 engine, a Zaporozhets gearbox with differential and a home-made reduction gearbox form a single unit at the stern, directly above a single-stage waterjet with a 219 mm rotor. A lever beside the driver selects waterjet, neutral or wheels. Afloat, the wheels are winched up by 700 mm so that no running gear touches the water, which also protects it from weeds and corrosion. The suspension can even be removed quickly to turn the vehicle into a pure boat. The first Triton is 5.45 m long and 2.2 m wide, with a full displacement of 1,300 kg. It reaches 90-110 km/h on the road and 36-50 km/h planing on the water. It seats four on the move, and the cabin can take eight people as a houseboat.

Triton-2

The Triton-2, described in Modelist-Konstruktor in 1997, looks similar but is a new design. It has a narrower track, wheels and suspension within the hull outline, a driver's door on the left, hydraulic wheel lifting and front-wheel drive. A 100 hp GAZ-31029 engine at the stern drives a gearbox and differential in the bow through a propeller shaft, using VAZ-2108 drive shafts. The hull is clad in aircraft plywood. It weighs 1,100 kg empty and 1,450 kg loaded, and is quoted at up to 120 km/h on the road and 50 km/h on water.

Business plan

By 2004 a business plan offered a family of Tritons for small-scale production: a rear-drive Triton-1, a front-drive Triton-2, a Triton 4x4, and proposed 6x6 and 8x8 expedition versions. Engines were to be ZMZ four-cylinder or V8 units, and a sailing rig was offered as an option.