OZamphibian Platypus

The Platypus is an amphibious car developed in Australia in 2004 by Boyd Wyatt, trading as OZamphibian. It replaced a Chinese-built amphibian that Wyatt had sold and tested for about a year; that model went out of production, and he later sold his example to a military-vehicle collector. He said the testing showed him what was needed for rough, real-sea conditions, and that the old vehicle's engineering had been poor in places.

Design

The Platypus is built around a standard Suzuki Jimny steel chassis. The chassis is bedded on Sikaflex and fully encapsulated inside the glass-fibre hull with two layers of 600 g glass, which Wyatt said made both very strong. The chassis, suspension and running gear were deliberately left unaltered, so that the vehicle counted as a body modification of an already-approved car and was easier to get past Australian road authorities. The underside of the hull is a twin-tunnel design for stability and better rough-water handling.

In the water it is driven by a jet, designed specially for a semi-displacement hull and driven by a power take-off from the Jimny transfer case; a twin-propeller version was also being considered. To keep water out, there are no openings at the front or below the waterline. Cooling air enters through two large vents on the right side, is ducted to the radiator, and leaves through electrically fanned vents on the left just below the roof. The lagged exhaust runs up the hot-air duct and exits through the transom.

Development

By November 2004 the car was driving, the jet was installed and the first customer's vehicle had been shown at a shopping-centre opening; Wyatt described himself as basically in production. A December 2004 jet test showed the nose dropping under power, to be fixed by raising the jet nozzle. He planned soft-top and hard-top roofs, left-hand-drive, long-wheelbase and utility versions, and hoped to license local manufacturers, including one in Europe, to build cars from his moulds using local donor vehicles.