By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Human beings have the strange ability to continually develop new and fascinating ways of transportation. We also have the ability to create modes of transportation that could lead to the grisly demise of their passengers. Enter the “Amfibus,” a passenger bus that also doubles as a ferry boat. They are built in Holland and Glasgow, and Scotland may be the first place to put one into service.

The bus would replace a ferry that was operating at a loss. The initial cost for the bus is no small change, they go for more than a million dollars US. Based off of a Volvo bus, the company adds a water tight hull and the jet drive used to propel the bus in the water. It will go 60 mph on land and a leisurely 8 knots in the water. The bus/boat/submarine has seating for 50 passengers.

The bus will be used to ferry people across the Clyde river.

We think this is kind of a cool idea, but if the yellow bus decides to head for Davy Jones’ Locker, we’d rather be on a boat we could jump off of than inside a spacious Volo bus. It would be bitchin’ to up fit the thing with a bar and other fun stuff and float it around a lake for the day like a massive pontoon boat, although we’d outfit ours with twin, blown, 572ci big block Chevys.

Remember how skeptical y’all were about Rinspeed sQuba concept? How you refused to give it any cred at all until we found you a video that claimed to show it putzing around beneath the surface? Well, the sQuba did show up at the Geneva Motor Show, as promised, but not in a diving tank. Instead, they have it posed on this cheesy fake beachscape, complete with blue-tinted plexiglass "water" and plastic lobsters. Yes, lobsters. Our buddies over at Jalopnik managed to snap some nice pictures of the sQuba doing nothing. Sure, the little Lotus looks cool, but where’s the big splash? Where’s the shark tank? Where’s the James Bond couple with scuba suits over their evening wear? Hmm. Neat idea, but in the absence of a live demo, we can’t be sure this concept holds water.

Continue reading "Geneva Motor Show: Rinspeed sQuba is a Fish out of Water" »

Can you guess what happens when this little 4wd goes for a dive? That shows what an intake snorkel is capable of, though you’d better hope your engine’s watertight everywhere else as well! All it’d take would be one stall to turn your ride into someone’s new boat-anchor.

The mad geniuses at Rinspeed are either really handy with the GCI, or they’re seriously bringing a functional diving car to the Geneva Motor Show. In any case, their site has been restocked with a hilarious video and a lot of more detailed pictures that depict a well-dressed couple supposedly putting the Lotus-bodied submarine-car through its paces. And yes, as some of you complained the other day, the sQuba is in fact a convertible. Which means you have to wear diving gear to drive it. Don’t forget your tuxedo! See more astonishing pics after the jump, and the full gallery at Left Lane News.

Continue reading "Update: Rinspeed Posts sQuba Video, Images to Show They're Serious" »

Swiss concept visionaries Rinspeed, famous for outlandish one-offs like the Splash hydrofoil amphibian, is outdoing itself for this year’s Geneva Motor Show with what it seems to imply will be a functional submersible concept car. Called the sQuba, this submarine car will both drive on land and dive up to 33 feet beneath the water’s surface. The breathless and charmingly ESL website copy at the Rinspeed site leaves the nuts-and-bolts status of the sQuba conveniently ambiguous: it promises a vehicle "beyond the scope of many human virtues of imagination," though whether it’s gone beyond designers’ own imaginations, in the form of a working prototype for Geneva, remains to be seen. While Rinspeed has certainly delivered in the past, the sQuba concept seems a bit out-there even for them. What do you predict?  Do you expect a sQuba to appear in a giant shark-tank before awed visitors at the Geneva Motor Show? Or is this concept so unfeasible that it’s doomed to remain suspended in the realm of CGI geekdom?

And check out our update on the sQuba: real pics and video!!

Yeah yeah, we know illegal immigration is—well, illegal—but it’s hard not to admire the determination of the handful of Cubans who have over the years converted their rides into boats for the perilous journey across the Florida Straits. Check out this Chevy truck, converted into a kind of pontoon boat, for an attempted crossing in 2003 (good to see everyone wearing life jackets—safety first!). I wish there were some clearer pics of this 50′s Buick, which was reported to be cutting through the waves using its orginal V8. The most recent attempt I was able to find involved a 1948 Mercury taxi cab (pictured), which ferried thirteen people most of the way to the Florida Keys in 2005. Some of the people involved in engineering the first Chevy truck-boat were members of the later amphibious-crossing parties as well—check out Car and Driver’s 2006 interview with one of the builders. I love how the style-conscious border-hoppers painted the boat-hulls the same bright colors as the car itself, but I cringe a little to think of all the salt damage, as well as the fact that the Coast Guard is believed to have sunk all three of the craft.