This Pickering couple turns heads in their two 1960s Amphicars that ‘drive’ on water - Toronto Star
‘It’s a crappy car and crappy boat’ but boatloads of fun.
Rick and Susan Lloyd turn heads when they drive their 1962 or 1967 convertibles into a lake or river. The cars are German-made Amphicars, the only civilian passenger car manufactured that also travels in water.
Rick and Susan Lloyd of Pickering make a splash wherever they take their 1962 and 1967 convertibles. They are Amphicars Model 770s, the only civilian passenger cars manufactured that also travel in water. The amphibious cars were made in Germany and marketed from 1961 to 1968, with production ceasing in 1965.
Rick explains how they acquired their first Amphicar.
Susan’s uncle had the car and spent a few years convincing me to buy it. He owned a gas station and got it in 1964 from a guy who bought it new because he had owned a cottage on an island and could drive the car right to the cottage. He told Susan’s uncle he should buy it for advertising, and her uncle agreed, if the seller gave him a receipt saying it was a snow plow. The uncle told his wife he’d bought a new convertible, picked her and his two daughters up, and drove into the river. His wife jumped out. He wasn’t married for much longer after that.
He put it in a barn and left it. We were at a family function in Ottawa in 1998 and it was in the driveway. Unbeknownst to me, it had been sitting forever and he’d done nothing to it.
Rick and Susan Lloyd in Dunedin, Fla.
I was in the passenger seat, a bunch of kids were in the back. As we were flying down the road to the boat launch, I realized it had no brakes. He drove it into the river, and water was pouring in everywhere.
I was pretty much convinced then to buy it and paid $6,500 for it. I took it to Whitby Harbour to make sure the bilge pump was working, got halfway into the harbour, and water was coming out the back end. I took it apart and took two years to restore it. A friend’s dad painted the body (Lagoon Blue) for me. He said: “It’s going to be the prettiest thing on the bottom of the lake.”
It feels like a from the ‘60s, with no power steering or brakes. It has a German transmission and Mercedes parts, but it has a rear-mounted, four-speed British Triumph engine and the fuel tank is in the front. It’s called a 770 because it can go seven knots in the water and 70 mph (100 km) on land. It’s designed with all the features of a boat, such as navigation lights and you have to have life jackets and a paddle. It is registered as a boat and car.
The freakiest part is driving into the water. It’s a weird sensation and you have to shift into water transmission. You can run the drive wheels and dual props at the same time. It has no rudder and you can’t steer it like a boat. You need a football field to turn it. We trailer it to lakes or river rather than driving it, as it doesn’t have seatbelts or side-view mirrors. People are honking at us when we’re trailering it down the highway. We have taken it to Florida in winter, but stay to freshwater bodies of water with it.
Susan says: “Our favourite part is when we get to a boat launch and peoples have trailers and trucks, and we go around them and be in the water in under a minute. Everyone is freaking out.”
Pulling up to a Tim Hortons drive-thru on Lake Scugog.
It’s a crappy car and crappy boat, but lots of fun. Its sits low in the water and we take it out when it’s calm. It doesn’t lend itself to rough water or wakes. We were in a lake north of Orillia once when it quit and started taking on water. A guy with pontoon boat towed us.
In 2023, Tim Hortons did a promo by having a floating drive-through on Lake Scugog for boaters and paddlers. The promo said no cars allowed, so I took the Amphicar just because they said that. It became quite the spectacle.
We took it to a wedding of a real estate agent who sold waterfront condos. He was getting married at the Toronto Beach Club, and wanted it in the wedding. I was supposed to drive up from a cove with the brides and flower girls to where they were getting married. You need a good launch or hard-packed sand, as the car is rear-wheel drive. It hit the beach and got stuck. The groomsmen had to push it up to the wedding site.
The International Amphicar Owners Club Home — International Amphicar Owners Club (IAOC) holds an annual event in Celina, Ohio the last weekend in July, with 50 to 60 Amphicars there, that are all functioning, that we’ve attended. The town built a two-car ramp so you can launch two Amphicars at once into the lake.
Three years ago, we bought another Amphicar from Texas. It’s a 1967 and is Regatta Red. They only came in four colours — white, red, blue and green. We had to get a second Amphicar, as our twins, Meagan and Chris, were arguing over who was going to get the first one, so we had to get another.
These cars are now worth upwards of $150,000. Collectors buy them and store them, but in our club, we want people to use it. I give people rides in it wherever we are, and I don’t care if people lean on it — we take it into the lake, after all. The idea is to use it. It’s tremendous fun.
