Ryan Streamline

The Ryan Streamline was the first amphibious car designed and built by Mike Ryan. He began it in the early 1980s, after giving up rallying because of the cost, and was then living in Torquay. He wanted front-wheel drive for climbing out of the water but needed the weight at the back. His solution was a Ford 1600 Crossflow engine at the rear driving an upside-down differential at the front, with the crankshaft pulley also powering a small fold-away Z-drive for the water.

Testing

The rolling chassis was first floated at night at Totnes. The finished car's first proper test, on the River Avon at Tewkesbury, went badly: it took on water and seemed to sit far too low. Ryan feared he had got his buoyancy sums wrong, with the press already booked to film it two days later. After a frantic 36 hours of work, the team launched it at the Fairford power-boat lake the night before filming, and it floated perfectly. Central TV, the BBC and BSkyB covered the launch. At one point Ryan nearly gave up and offered the unfinished project to Tim Dutton, who declined and went on to build his own amphibious cars.

Record

A planned Channel crossing from London to Calais and back to Dover was stopped by force 8-9 gales. Instead, Ryan and power-boat racer Paul Wilde drove the car non-stop up the Thames for about 30 hours. This took a non-stop amphibious distance record from the BBC programme Blue Peter, and the record still stood when Ryan wrote his account. Ryan's website called the Streamline "the world's fastest amphibious car". It was later sold to a Dutch pilot.