‘Mad scientist’ builds amphibious car
Queenstown mechanic Leigh Carppe has fulfilled a dream, taking his home-built amphibious car for a spin on Lake Wakatipu.
Known to friends as ‘‘the mad scientist’’, Carppe built the vehicle to give himself and friends the best seats on the lake for watching the upcoming Queenstown Winter Festival Birdman Competition.
However, he would not be entering in the competition itself.
‘‘I’m not sure about its structural integrity for going off the wharf.’’
The vehicle is a deregistered Subaru Vivio and over a month he had used lots of expandable foam to fill up the doors, welded up holes in the floor and around the vehicle, constructed a bow to keep the heavy motor afloat and created an area at the back for an outboard motor.
‘‘(Sunday) was the first proper drive in it. Before that I actually went and spent money on the outboard motor. I took it down to the lake to make sure it would float. I didn’t want to spend too much in case it sank.’’
He was surprised by the attention he received during the ‘‘sea trial’’ with two friends in the vehicle they dubbed the Subarumarine.
They first put it in the water at Sunshine Bay and motored around for a couple of hours.
As they exited the lake a couple of local policeman arrived to investigate an abandoned car.
‘‘When they noticed my oddlooking car they came and had a chat but they were totally happy. Everyone was wearing life jackets and we had all the emergency stuff on board.
‘‘They did decline to go for a test drive with us,’’ Carppe said.
The trio then towed the car to Frankton Marina for a more public launch.
All was going well as they cruised around Frankton Arm in the water before heading to Kelvin Heights where they struck a fuel economy problem.
‘‘We ran out of gas just off shore. We got the paddles out and paddled to a boat and they were good enough to tow us to the boat ramp and then we drove it out.’’
Boatie Sharmaine Kerr was fishing with her family at the time when her husband noticed the car in the lake and a couple of blokes waving yellow paddles in the air.
‘‘I thought he (her husband) was on drugs. Then I looked through the binoculars and saw there was a car on the lake. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,’’ she said.
Carppe was struggling to work yesterday as news of his exploits spread via Facebook and he received calls and texts from friends.
‘‘It was pretty awesome and it’s just funny seeing people’s reactions, especially when you pull up to the boat ramp and drive in. Everybody just looks and laughs.’’
As they entered the water at Frankton two cyclists on the nearby track were so distracted they ran into each other and fell off their bikes.
He consider this first model under powered – better for trawling than water skiing, and he’s not really into fishing.
In the future he is keen to extend his concept to a car he can legally drive on the road and probably also a four-wheel-drive. ‘‘So I can get out on the beach and you don’t need boat ramps. This has been a good learning car.’’