With thousands of miles of shoreline plus hundreds of natural and man-made inland lakes and rivers and canals, boating is a big deal in Michigan. Although I do enjoy a boat ride now and then, I have no desire for boat ownership. But it was on this perfect summer day we went with friends onto Lake Saint Clair and stopped at the positively hopping Browns Bar in the middle channel of the St. Clair River on Harsens Island called where I encountered four pristine, beautiful, fully running and seaworthy Amphicar 770s, all in one place. Outside of a Amphicar club event or a museum, what is the statistical possibility of that?
Much has been written about these here, so I won’t get too into it. Made by West Germany’s Quandt Group from 1960-1963, with a total run of just 3,878, how many can possibly exist today? Most were sold in the United States and one was owned by none other than President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Harsens Island is not a particularly easy place to get to. It’s about 30 miles as the crow flies from downtown Detroit, and you need to take a ferry to get to the island. The little 1150 cc 4 cylinder can motivate these to 70 miles an hour. One of the owners said he has his tuned and running very well, and confirmed he could go on the highway a bit, but anything above 65, and it “starts to wind out pretty good”.
Twin props will get you about 7 knots! A quick online search found that one of these crossed the English Channel in 1965 in rough seas, but it sure seems that they are most content puttering along inland canals, ponds and small lakes.
Bottom line, then and now, these Amphicars are engineering marvels. I personally had never seen one in the flesh, and they brought a smile to everyone’s face on the lake that day. Kudos to their owners for not being afraid to put these ancient and well loved machines through their paces!
My oldest brother, a nephew and close friends own boats, and it is a lifelong dream for many to attain one. This actually is the best possible scenario to boat ownership: having a close friend or family member with a boat. Get invited, chip in some gas money, bring some food and beer and not have to worry about all the drama that goes with it for a short five month season. This includes: storage, marina fees, trailering, marina fees, insuring and maintaining a boat.
Bonus footage of one boat that I kept going back to:
I am a sucker for orange..orange anything really, and this vintage white and orange runabout was right as rain to my eyes!
Not a great boat, not a great car, yet somehow still great. Amphicars always bring a smile to my face. Nice find.
Great find. I saw one in person at an auto show many years ago.
There are a couple of ways to look at these cars. First, the owners were so confident about their ability to make the trip in their cars that they cruised them across Lake St. Clair. Or, they traveled in a foursome in case one broke down. Or, each owner signed up for the annual towing service that operates on the lake. One flat fee for the year. Or, most likely, they just crossed over from Algonac on the channel, thus avoiding the lake altogether.
Since I live on Lake St Clair, I’ll have to keep an eye out for these cars/boats.
Saw one back in 2018 at Hunt Valley Horsepower’s Saturday Morning Cars and Coffee. Cool car. Love his bumper sticker….
I saw a group of these in Saugatuck Michigan some years back. I’ll bet it’s the same group.
I have always wondered how the doors managed to seal securely enough to keep the water out (and even more so over time). I though once upon a time that the bottom edge of the doors are above the waterline, but that does not seem to be the case.
They were/are not completely watertight. But they do have a pump to get rid of exces water.
The floorpans were always the first to rust …
My father took my brother and I to The New York Automobile Show in 1961 and we got to see these at the show. The other big crowd I remember was for the Jaguar X K E. Told my schoolmates about it and shortly later we discovered one sharing a showroom with a new 1961 Dodge Dart just five blocks from my house. Yes, our local Dodge dealer had a new one and I still had the brochure from the show. C.T., J.J. and I gave a report to our 5th grade class and we passed the brochure around for the other students to see. Don’t know if the dealer sold any or not. The Hudson is brackish where we are and that makes is tough are marine equipment. The location had been a long running small Buick dealer not long before but the Dodge store didn’t seem to last long. I think this was a time for a lot of changes with Chrysler dealers here with DeSoto going out and Valiant coming in.
What a timely article! I was at the cottage on Lake Simcoe (Ontario) on Canada Day weekend and I’ve seen one!
Another view
And on the road.
Correction: previous pictures were taken on the Black River.
Pretty neat .
I see the owners have the right attitude too .
-Nate
For those who may be a fan of the House of Mouse, there are four of these currently residing at Disney Springs in Florida. My wife and I rode in one while there and found them to be quite fascinating. Obviously most of the original features have been removed from what I could tell as there were more than a few holes in the dash, but overall fairly solid for being approximately sixty years old. Pricey to take the tour in them ($125/car up to three people), but enjoyable. Paraphrased from the driver “See that handle? Up is a car ride. Down is a submarine ride.”
Yep, my wife and I did the same thing circa 2019. At the time there were more than four Amphicars running and my wife took a video of us cruising around the lake as well as some photos. Great experience even though I am not a water person at all.
My family acquired a Renault Caravelle that became my sister’s car, but before then we all had a chance to drive it about. People were constantly asking ‘is that one of those amphibious cars?’ and were usually visibly disappointed when we answered ‘no, it’s a Renault.’ Few had follow up questions after that, even though the Caravelle is quite an interesting vehicle in its own right. The picture is from Wikipedia, we had ours repainted in a very attractive metallic green.
Here’s a look at the back end of a very similar although slighlty lighter green car.
I’ll try that again.