Floating

Inspired by watching events such as the Port Townsend (WA) Kinetic Sculpture Race, it occurred to local tinkerer and inventor John Montgomery how simple it would be to run a live axle through the middle of a canoe and use an inverted bicycle frame to drive it.

In 1961, Chevrolet introduced the Corvair 95 Greenbriar van and Rampside pickup. One Corvair that largely went unnoticed was the Corphibian prototype.

The Croco was designed for extreme off-road situations. It articulates in the middle, it is amphibious, and it can climb and descend almost any hill you are willing to try. 

This propeller-driven iceboat was built using an illustration featured in a 1924 Popular Mechanics magazine. It features a Heath Henderson, Model B-4 motorcycle piston engine. 

An example of the U.S. military’s largest amphibious craft, the LARC-LX (lighter, amphibious, resupply, cargo) came in three sizes, ranging in size from 5 ton (LARC v) to the LX, capable of transporting 60 tons from ocean to inland, across heavy seas and up inclines as steep as 60 degrees. 

This little 6 ½’ long ski-tug was produced in Hamburg, Germany for the leisure market in Europe and the US, and was quite popular before the popularity of more mainstream personal watercraft. This 24hp engine was the first large-scale production of a rotary.