1921 Auto-Boat: Floating along 40 years earlier than the Amphicar
Was this floating car for real? Forty years before the Amphicar, there was the Auto-Boat, an amphibious vehicle built to haul up to seven passengers by New Yorker Paul Panketan….
Was this floating car for real?
Forty years before the Amphicar, there was the Auto-Boat, an amphibious vehicle built to haul up to seven passengers by New Yorker Paul Panketan. Although the Auto-Boat never became mass-produced like the Amphicar, some of its numbers were more impressive: five or seven passenger carrying capacity, 90 mph on land and 35 mph on water with retractable wheels to keep the tires above the water.
The November 1921 issue of American Automobile Digest reported: “The ‘Auto-Boat’ has a boat-like body, slender and graceful. All the controls are situated in the front seat. On land it will operate like any other automobile, developing a speed of nearly ninety miles an hour. When run into the water the mere shifting of a few levers converts the automobile into a speed boat with an estimated speed of thirty-five miles an hour. On entering the water the four wheels can be lifted in fifteen seconds by the moving of a lever. The mechanism is carefully protected from the water."
American Automobile Digest further noted that European inventors had already been experimenting with amphibious motor vehicles, and that Mr. Panketan’s 90-hp, gasoline-engined “Auto-Boat” already carried patent number 471131.
The photos of the Auto-Boat in water appear doctored for the age leaving us wonder, did it actually float? We conferred with the "Standard Catalog of American Cars: 1805-1942" and no listing appeared, leaving us to believe no plans developed further for the mass production of the “Auto-Boat.” Surely this novel car wasn’t intentionally destroyed. If it’s not on the bottom of the Hudson River, perhaps it’s hiding in someone’s barn, waiting to be discovered.
Related Resources:
5,000 prewar car listings appear in "The Standard Catalog of American Cars: 1805-1942," one of my favorite books of all time.
Angelo Van Bogart is the editor of Old Cars magazine and wrote the column "Hot Wheels Hunting" for Toy Cars & Models magazine for several years. He has authored several books including "Hot Wheels 40 Years," "Hot Wheels Classics: The Redline Era" and "Cadillac: 100 Years of Innovation." His 2023 book "Inside the Duesenberg SSJ" is his latest. He can be reached at avanbogart@aimmedia.com
