Best of both worlds

By IBI Magazine / Phil Draper

A new sports amphibian vehicle, the Gibbs Aquada, was given its world premiere in London yesterday. A cross between a sportscar and sportsboat, it is claimed to be the first road-legal amphibian to offer serious land performance with a planing capability on water. It is actually capable of 100mph on the road and up to 26 knots on sheltered water.

Up to now amphibians have been restricted to no more than about 6mph, principally because the resistance of the wheels. However, the Aquada gets round this problem by retracting them up inside the body. Moreover, it can move between land and water without actually stopping. It is simply driven into the water and once afloat the driver need only flick one switch for the wheels to fold up. Similarly one switch pops them back down again when it is time to come ashore. The steering wheel and foot throttle work in both modes.

The Aquada is powered by a 175hp V6 running on unleaded gasoline. On land it has an automatic transmission driving the rear wheels, but once afloat the drive and steering automatically switch to a highly efficient waterjet, one that is said to be a quarter of the length and half the weight of conventional pumps.

There are no doors in the Aquada, which means there are no potential seal problems. One simply steps in over the side using the running boards as a step.

The car composite body shell that is bonded to a tubular aluminium space frame. The brainchild of Alan Gibbs, a New Zealand entrepreneur based in the UK, the Aquada was developed by the same team responsible for cars such as the legendry Jaguar XJ220 and the Aston Martin DB7 cabriolet, not to mention a host of other projects from limousines to military 4WD vehicles. Initially a limited edition 'Bond' series of 100 Aquadas will be built with an on-the-road or on-water price of around €150,000.

(4 September 2003)