[lit-ideas] Re: One step closer to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 08:42:41 EDT
It would indeed be "pretty hype". Unfortunately I have only the info the
article disclosed ...not being an engineer... you might ask ...um....Mike?
(Re. installing gas stations across the ocean not only would it be a VERY bad
idea, but I think undoable?
Julie Krueger
clueless but interested
========Original Message======== Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: One step closer
to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Date: 10/18/2006 7:32:04 A.M. Central Standard
Time From: _erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx) To:
_lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) Sent on:
Hm, how far can you go with it? E.g. if we were to install gas
stations on the ocean (a very bad idea, I might add), could one drive
across an ocean with it? That'd be pretty hype.
Erin
Toronto
Quoting JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx:
>
>
> (http://ads.web.aol.com/link/93102604/aol) Okay, how cool is
> this? And I thought I wanted a Hummer....! (http://www.cnn.com/)
> (javascript:void(printArticle());)
> _Aquatic car drives with 'oooomph' - CNN.com_
> (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/10/17/amphibious.car.ap/index.html)
> (javascript:void(printArticle());)
>
>
>
>
> Aquatic car drives with 'oooomph'
>
>
>
> RIDGELAND, South Carolina (AP) -- It's not terribly easy to parallel park
an
> automobile on a lake.
> Now, John Giljam knows this to be as true as the highway is long, and for
> good reason: He's tried to park his car on a lake -- and on rivers,
> ponds, even
> the Intracoastal Waterway.
> Giljam, in fact, has practiced not only parking on water; he's become
quite
> adept at turning sharply on it. (He no longer gets drenched in a curtain
of
> spume when cornering, he'll have you know.) And he's mastered the art of
> steering clear of critters -- geese, mostly, though gators have a habit of
> surfacing at inopportune moments.
> It helps, of course, to learn these aquatic feats behind the wheel of his
> latest creation, the "Hydra Spyder," an amphibious car that cruises
> on H2O as
> easily as it does on blacktop.
> With its snazzy snout, convertible top, Corvette V8 engine and jet
> "impeller" -- the stainless-steel cone protruding from the rear that
> propels it
> through water -- the Hydra Spyder is poised to become the first,
> mass-produced
> amphibious automobile in America.
> "It's incredibly nimble in the water. The Spyder turns smoothly, docks
> easily," the 46-year-old inventor boasts.
> It has one shortcoming, he concedes. On the water, "the parallel parking
> really sucks."
> Giljam tingles at the idea of anglers taking their cars out on lakes for a
> day of fishing; of rush-hour commuters bypassing congestion by
> taking a river
> as an alternate route; of water-skiers bouncing along in the wake of a
> speedboat with four wheels.
> "I honestly feel I've been born with a gift, and it was for creating
> mechanical things," he says. "It's what keeps me up at night."
> Ten years ago, Giljam operated a Jet Ski rental company on Hilton Head
> Island. Business was brisk, he recalls, but one day two customers
> crashed into
> each other. Though they weren't hurt seriously, he shut the business
> down, he
> says. "I would not be able to function if something I owned and
> operated hurt
> somebody."
> Which then got him to thinking: Could an aquatic vehicle be designed to be
> fast and safe?
> By 39, he had invented -- and patented -- the world's first unsinkable bus
> and the world's first aquatic, luxury RV. Producing amphibious cars
> on a grand
> scale would be, as he sees it, a "logical" new endeavor.
> Washout
> His Hydra Spyder is not the first of its kind to crawl ashore. Civilian,
> amphibious vehicles have been around for more than a century, and European
> manufacturers have long dominated the trade.
> Yet, while some models have been able to raise dust on a highway, nearly
all
> have been agonizingly slow in the wet, where wheels create drag. One
> well-known washout was the "Amphicar," which was mass-produced in
> Germany from 1961
> to 1968. On roadways, the Amphicar got up to 70 miles per hour but
> disappointed in the water, mustering a dash speed of just 7 miles per
hour.
> In the mid-1990s, Alan Gibbs, a New Zealand inventor-entrepreneur, founded
> Gibbs Technologies, of Nuneaton, England, with the aim of
> developing the first
> high-speed amphibious car. (Gibbs had a 194-foot yacht, which he enjoyed
> outfitting with aquatic "toys" -- meaning anything from a Jet Ski to a
> submarine.)
> In 2003, after seven years of work with 70 British engineers and
designers,
> Gibbs launched "Aquada," an amphibious sports car, a la 007, with
> retractable
> wheels and a jet drive that propelled it along water at a maximum speed of
> 32.8 miles per hour.
> To the acclaim of the British media, it made its test-run at London's
> Docklands, scene of a high-speed boat chase in the James Bond film
> "The World Is
> Not Enough." Not long thereafter, the Aquada made the Guinness Book
> of Records
> for the fastest crossing of the English Channel by an amphibious vehicle.
> (Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic, planed across in
> 1 hour, 40
> minutes and 6 seconds.)
> At the time, Giljam's company, Cool Amphibious Manufacturers International
> LLC, which he founded with his wife, Julie, in 1999, was turning out
> amphibious buses, a dozen or so a year, at a factory in Rochester,
> N.Y. (Tour
> operators are the Giljams' main clients; eight "Hydra Terras" are
> currently in
> operation in New York City.)
> The Aquada's big splash threw Giljam into creative overdrive. "I suppose,"
> he told a reporter once, "we just wanted to answer the Brits." The
amphibian
> he envisioned would have to be faster, tougher, and more economical than
the
> Aquada, which retailed for $300,000.
> And unsinkable. "Safety," says Giljam, a 12-year veteran of a rescue squad
> in his native Lakeville, New York, "means everything to me."
> And so, he took to the drawing board.
> History in the making
> Today, the factory doesn't look like much from Interstate 95: a
> sand-colored, corrugated-roof structure on an 11-acre wedge of
> property covered in
> knee-high weeds and hemmed in by overgrown live oaks.
> On the floor of this 20,000-square-foot building, though, amphibian
history
> is in the making.
> Near the far corner, the lemon-yellow, fiberglass body agleam, sits a
Hydra
> Spyder -- the prototype, actually. It sold last November -- for $175,000.
> "This gentleman was insistent," says Julie, "and we needed the cash
> for the new
> plant."
> A non-disclosure agreement protects the identity of the buyer, one of the
> wealthiest men in America -- a "Forbes Top-50 kinda guy," Giljam says --
and
> from the West Coast, who took delivery before the Giljams could test it
at a
> motor speedway.
> They did test the prototype in the water.
> One afternoon, moments after rolling the Hydra Spyder smoothly off a dock
in
> Bluffton, South Carolina, John Giljam remembers how "a lady came running
> pell-mell down the dock, screaming: 'Don't worry! We've called 911! The
fire
> department is on its way!"'
> John and Julie tried to explain what an amphibious vehicle was, even took
> the woman for a spin around the lake. Still, her expression seemed
> clouded as
> she walked away from the dock, muttering.
> The Hydra Spyder "has that effect sometimes," Giljam shrugs.
> On this day, the mystery tycoon's Hydra Spyder is back in the shop for
> adjustments: a new, 502 CID Chevy Race Engine that will boost
> horsepower from 400
> to 500 -- one step below dragstrip capability -- and new,
> heavy-duty mufflers
> to subdue the motor's roar.
> "Apparently," Giljam explains, "it was hard to hold a conversation with
the
> engine running."
> In an adjacent pod, welders and mechanics are handcrafting the
marine-grade,
> aluminum hull of Hydra Spyder No. 2, which will have a racing
transmission,
> "super chargers," and other high-performance features.
> These help provide what Giljam calls "oooomph" -- which is something
aquatic
> racers most desire after plowing their cars into a body of water.
> To switch the Hydra Spyder into "marine mode," the driver simply presses a
> button, which drops the clutch, disengages the road drive, shifts the
> transmission into aquatic duty, and retracts the wheels. The
> jet-drive kicks in then,
> allowing the Hydra Spyder to plane across water like a speedboat at
greater
> than 50 mph.
> Oooomph does come at a cost: Base price is $155,000 -- to which can be
added
> all kinds of extras, including heated seats ($1,000), a custom
entertainment
> system for in-Spyder cinema ($5,000), Lamborghini door systems ($2,000),
and
> teak interior trim ($1,500).
> And though not intended for use on open seas, this amphibian can be fitted
> with a fishfinder.
> So, even as Detroit automakers struggle to survive, the future looks
bright
> for Cool Amphibious Manufacturers. The Giljams have 6 orders for Hydra
> Spyders. Within five years, they hope to expand their new factory
> and produce 75
> Hydra Spyders a year.
> Their top competitor, Gibbs Technologies, for the time being at least, has
> withdrawn from the amphibian automobile market. Steve Bailey, a Gibbs
> spokesman, says the company made 50 Aquadas, then stopped in 2005
> because the engines
> used were discontinued when their maker went bankrupt.
> "We are looking for an alternative engine to bring the Aquada back to
market
> again," Bailey says. Still, he says, Gibbs Technologies doesn't plan to
get
> in a dogfight with the Giljams.
> "We'll be looking to license the technology out this time to other
companies
> that might be interested in producing their own vehicles," he says. "We
are
> a technology development company."
> Which means the Giljams can focus on improvements to performance and
safety.
> As it is now, all cavities in the Hydra Spyder's "hull" are packed with
> flotation foam, approved by the U.S. Coast Guard. "You could flood
> the motor,
> knock a 12-inch hole in the Spyder's bottom, and still it would float."
> And, for the record, how good is it on gas?
> On land, somewhere around 16 to 18 miles per gallon of premium gas. (This
> amphibian can also run on an ethanol mix without modifications.) Not too
> shabby, Giljam says, for a 3,400-pound vehicle that is 18.6 feet
> long and a foot
> wider than the average landlocked car.
> He adds: "When you put it in the water, you burn a lot more fuel and the
> odometer doesn't move. Tires don't rotate in the water, you know."
> Which, perhaps, is why Julie Giljam always reminds customers: "Before you
go
> into the water, fill her up."
> Copyright 2006 The _Associated Press_
> (http://www.cnn.com/interactive_legal.html#AP) . All rights
> reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast,
> rewritten, or redistributed.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
--
Erin
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