The seller says it was refurbished in Germany in the 1980s and they’ve done a bunch of recent work themselves since they acquired it in 2020, including rebuilding the carburetor, adjusting the valves, and adding new braking components, fresh fuel hoses and a new battery. It’s also not cheap, though, with the current bid sitting at $85,000 with five days to go.
We realize that some of you are justifiably concerned that climate change is part of the issue (particularly the fires and storms), or that you may be worried about a Mad Max-style resource-barren hell world where the basic fluids to keep an internal combustion engine running become impossible to find. You could always stash the numbers-matching original engine in a bomb-proof box inside a bug-out bunker and go about rigging some on-car solar panels to an electric drivetrain, Looper-style. It’s up to you.
Yet if you keep the original engines in there, these amphibious vehicles are powered by some of the simplest ones you can find. You’ll have no worries about complicated computer systems and your right-to-repair here. The Amphicars are powered by a 70-cubic-inch four-cylinder Triumph Herald engine that’s about as close to an old-school tractor’s as you can get without getting “John Deere Green” stuck in your head. That’s connected to a relatively simple four-speed manual transmission, too.