RIDE-CT – Classic Cars Celebrating Classic Cars in Connecticut
MIDDLETOWN – Its name is a portmanteau of “amphibious” and “car.” Fewer than 4,000 examples of the odd model were ever produced in what was then West Germany, and most were sold in the United States. A few were even adapted later into guided tour rides on Lake Buena Vista in the Disney Spring entertainment district of Disney World in Florida.
It was called the Amphicar Model 770 and its small tail fins provide a clue as to when it debuted – the early 1960s. “The 770 means seven miles an hour on the water and 70 miles an hour on the highway, and it doesn’t do either one of them very good is the standard joke,” said Jim Olson of the memorable vehicle that operated both on land and water.
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Check out the video of the Amphicar on RIDE-CT’s YouTube channel…
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The rear-engine Amphicar, which is powered by a 1,147cc, four cylinder Triumph engine, has four wheels and two propellers.
“It’s a car and a boat and there’s a shift lever next to the standard transmission shift lever that shifts the car from driving on land to running the two propellers in the back,” he explained.
Olson is a collector of unique cars who lives in Deep River, CT, but who has a storage facility/workshop in Middletown. He’s working this winter on the white Amphicar that he acquired about a year ago.
“My best friend in high school, his father had one. And, of course, we tried to get his father to let us take it when we were in high school,” he said, adding that it was “a very smart thing that he didn’t allow us because it probably would have been in the bottom of the Connecticut River.”
A friend of Olson’s – Jon Albert of Middlefield – spotted the Amphicar on Facebook Marketplace and immediately tipped him off. “This car had just been listed for like 10 minutes on Marketplace,” he said. “After not a lot but a little negotiation, here it is.”
Olson had just had knee replacement surgery so Albert retrieved it for him and has been helping him with the project.
“It had been in some sort of not very good, longterm, probably cold, nasty storage,” he said. “It was a dirty, kinda crusty looking car but with any old car you kinda have to look through the crustiness of it and I decided to do it.”
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Olson has a process he follows when obtaining a vehicle.
“The first thing I always like to do is try and get them running to see if the heart of the car, whatever it is, is still good. We had it running within probably 30 minutes of us actually getting down into it. So once we found out that it ran, we kinda had a sigh of relief and then proceeded to go further into it.”
Next to get checked was the transmission. “We wanted to make sure that that transaxle or transmission combination all worked, and that does.”
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Cleaning the Amphicar was also a priority.
“The paint’s shining up. We got the fuel system all cleaned out. The fuel tank’s in the front, engine’s in the back. Had to make sure that the fuel filter, the fuel tank was clean so that it would get a reliable supply of fuel. The brakes were shot. Had to redo the brakes, so that’s been done. We’re still working on the paint. The next thing I’m going to do is – I have it on order – is I have a brand new convertible top for it.
“Most of the time when I drive this car the top will be down. It probably will never be up but the car is going to look pretty nice for a 1967 so I felt it needed a good top.”
Olson has a list of tasks that he hopes to get completed this winter before actually taking the Amphicar out on land and water come spring.
“I want to find more things over the course of the winter. I have reproduction hub caps for it. I would like to find some original, older but usable, nice, not rusted out hub caps to put on it to match the original patina of the car,” he said. He’s also acquired replacement headlight rims.
“Over the course of the winter I’m going to source more original parts for it to keep the original survivor look of it. I like survivor cars so this car will never be painted. It’ll just be the way that it is and I hope to take it for its first – in the Amphicar world they call it a swim – I hope to take it for its first swim in the spring when temperatures a little better.”
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Production of the Amphicar Model 770 began in late 1960 and it was introduced at the New York Auto Show in 1961. The model was assembled until 1965 but sold until 1968. A total of 3,878 were reportedly made, with 97 examples being right-hand drive.
Unlike a boat, it lacks a rudder in the rear. Steering in water is accomplished via the front wheels by turning the steering wheel. Because it’s considered a boat, it has red and green navigation lights on its hood.
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“Being that it’s a car and a boat, you can register the car as a car and many states, probably even Connecticut here, if you’re going to put it in the public waterways it needs to be registered as a boat. So, as a boat, you have to have navigation lights,” Olson said. “It has a bilge pump. It has a bilge blower to get any gas fumes that might accumulate when it’s not running.”
Olson’s Amphicar is certainly a rarity and a sight to see. “Being that they’re watercraft a lot of them rotted out and they don’t exist anymore,” he said.
(Photos by Bud Wilkinson.)
