In a move that will cheer up lovers of vehicles that can travel on both water and (very flat) land, students at a German engineering university have built a one-person hovercraft that uses an air thrust system to move and steer.
PopSci got their hands on this 2.5-ton home-built frogtruck, a 260-horsepower treaded monster which is the first-ever amphibious vehicle that can fully retract its drive assembly. The path for the perfect amphibian truck was as hard as the ones this thing can now travel through at 50kph: the mud flats, bogs, ice fields, snow slopes, rivers and lakes of the Alaskan tundra.
newVideoPlayer("sQuba_Jalop.flv", 463, 387,"");This is the sQuba, a concept—but very real—car devised by James Bond fanatic Frank Rinderknecht who, when he’s not channelling the spirit of 007′s gadget mentor Q, designs classic concept cars for a living. The amphibious two-seater has been made from a Lotus Elise, with three electric motors replacing the petrol engine—one powers the back wheels, while the other two work the specially designed propellers.
If the Gibbs Aquada BoatCar isn’t quite manly enough for you, Gibbs Technology’s newest vehicle should do the trick. It’s the Humdinga—presumably a Hummer and a dingy combined—which is the size of an SUV and has lights enough to match the toughest Transformer. The thing goes from 0-60 in 9.2 seconds on land (which isn’t that shabby), and goes up to 40 MPH (knots?) in water. It’s just a prototype for now, but something like this should be more suitable for the military than the Aquada. [Product Page via Trendhunter via Treehugger via Sci Fi] More »
