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A Camaro That Leaves A Wake
Artana Niveus Corvum writes "I came across this entirely at random, but it seems like someone with too much time on his hands has taken an old idea and improved on it... and come up with something truly unique and cool: a car based on a 2002 Camaro body with a Subaru WRX Turbo engine (300 horsepower) capable of going over 125MPH that doubles as a boat capable of going over 40MPH."
2 below-threshold comments and it's down ... come on people, you're like the hand of a vengeful god of websites!
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
This will sure resolve all those commuter issues in Venice.
Wow, who would of thought THIS would ever be ON TOPIC?!?! Maybe he wasn't kidding?
"Uh, how you gonna get down to the shore?
Funny you should ask, I've got a car now.
Oh wow, how'd you get a car?
Oh, my parents drove it up here from the Bahamas.
You're kidding!
I must be, the Bahamas are islands, okay, the important thing now, is
that you ask me what kind of car I have.
Uh, what kinda car do ya got?
I've got a
BITCHIN CAMARO!....."
(go find the MP3... legaly of course)
~Z
units knows all
ianw@mingus:~$ units
2084 units, 71 prefixes, 32 nonlinear units
You have: 40mph
You want: knot
* 34.75905
/ 0.028769486
So about 35 knots
You can use google and type in this:
40mph in knots
it will give you this:
40 mph = 34.7590497 knots
Looks like we sunk his battleship.. err, server
Slashdot sucks
Does anyone know of a mass produced land/water capable vehicle past or present? I wonder if there would be a market large enough to justify an assembly line for these things.
Unless of course the make amphibious SUVs, the exhaust contributes to global warming, which raises the water level, which makes them useful.
Where do I get one?
Dave March - Builder of the WaterCar
WaterCar, Inc. is the brainchild of Dave March and his two sons. For over thirty years March has been an avid high performance car and boat enthusiast. His passion and desire has been for building and piloting fast planes, boats and cars. To facilitate his obsession for cars and boats he also developed a knack for repairing wrecked cars and boats. For the past twenty years March started and developed his collision repair business into one of the largest, most state of the art facilities in the world. He then took many of the systems and repair techniques that he developed and co-founded the Caliber Collision Center Franchise which currently has annual revenue of over 155 million.
In 1998 March accepted an offer to sell his business and semi-retired. After putting the finishing touches on his large custom home he built on the golf course in Newport Coast above his 6,000 square foot basement garage/design center equipped with every conceivable tool and piece of equipment imaginable found himself with a lot of spare time and pent up creative juices. This is dangerous combination for Dave March. He was looking for a challenge when his youngest son began looking at amphibious cars. Together they found a 1964 Amphicar and restored it. After all the work, they were disappointed by its performance. It was fun to drive into the water, but once in the water, it was slow and not as much fun as expected.
March threw himself into researching every amphibious vehicle in the world and discovered that amphibious vehicles are much more popular in Europe. And, to his astonishment, he realized that of all the vehicles ever built, no one had successfully built a true high performance amphibious vehicle.
That's when it hit him- why not combine his love of high performance cars and boats into a single, high performance amphibious car? "Everything he needed was right here in Southern California". The best hydraulics are available from the low-rider crowd and the rear-engine drive technology from the high performance sand-rail market. Every drive train combination you could imagine is available for inspection at Glamis. The brakes, suspension and speed accessories come from the hot rod aftermarket industry which is booming in Southern California. The most important part, hull and jet configuration, from the performance- boat industry along with unlimited input from great boat people that are very willing to help. He started thinking he could build a high performance amphibious car from off the shelf parts.
March wanted to build a four-seater, yet still keep the car sporty looking. The 2002 Camaro was the ideal starting point. He purchased a Camaro fiberglass funny-car shell body, added hundreds of labor hours and he had a great looking Camaro car/boat plug. He built the molds from the plug and proceeded to build the first parts.
March built a lightweight stainless frame to mount the suspension and motor to and fit it to the body. The challenge was to make the wheels retractable. He attended a couple of low-rider shows to figure how to make the wheels retractable and settled on using parts from Homies Hydraulics. The motor and jet combo was another significant challenge, particularly getting it all to fit in the trunk area. March wanted the WaterCar to look as much like a stock Camaro as possible.
The first time on the water, the vehicle performed beautifully, with only one significant problem: "It wouldn't plane out!" He made multiple trial trips back and forth to the lake, adding more boost for additional power and tinkering on the jet setup. After some additional work on the bottom, he was finally getting on plane easily and reaching 45 mph. Success at last!
The newest version of March's handiwork drives just like a car on the road and actually handles very well with the Corvette suspension. "It has plenty of power from the Subaru 2.5 Turbo WRX motor. When you go in the water, you simply drive in, put the transmission in neutral, engage the jet, fl
Pictures of Watercar and Aquada. http://www.jetski.com/article.cfm?id=433
:)
Nice to see that the watercar is 150K while the other Aquada is 235K.
Now lets see something a slashdot reader can afford.
I'm guessing they chose the Subaru engine for packaging. The Subaru STi engine they're using is a turbocharged 2.5 liter flat four (opposing cylinders) boxer engine. The layout and size of the engine is ideal for a watercar. The Camaro v8 is a monstrosity compared to this engine, and it is quite tall in comparison.
Liter for liter, the Subaru engine is better for this application.
Popular mechanics a few months back. Old news.
What the heck is a 'sig'?
Do we not yet realize that all slashdotters do is look at pictures and google doesn't tend to cache those?
Buncha morons posting trashtalk here... Lets see how many idiotic comments don't make any sense.
1. Camaro has 4 seats, not 2, and this boatcar also has 4 seats.
2. The subaru engine has plenty of power to push a car like this to over 125 mph. The basic camaro RS has less power than that subaru engine and can take a camaro RS to around 135 mph.
3. It uses a jetdrive, not a prop
4. It isn't a converted camaro, rather it's a custom design that looks like a camaro and actually uses many suspension parts from a corvette.
5. If you read the material, you see that the smooth underbody for water use is achieved through moving panels. In land mode, the panels are retracted. This likely disrupts airflow under the body and reduces lift.
6. Unless you're an aerodynamic engineer, STFU about what the boat hull shape will do to the aerodynamics of the vehicle. The original pre-1998 camaro was shaped like a wing and would flip over at speeds over around 180. This thing is sculpted in a rather different fashion and speculation on it's aerodynamic behavior without knowing the cross sectional shape or doing wind tunnel testing is just that - uninformed speculation.
Pitiful negative morons bagging on the article without even looking at the website... How about a big cupful of STFU.
Wow. You were right. You couldn't say it better yourself.
Check out the floatation devices on the owner's girlfriend :p