Items16The creator’s order
  1. 1Landing Vehicle, TrackedLanding Vehicle, TrackedDonald Roebling first built it to help with rescues in flood-prone southern Florida, and the Marines turned it into the amphibian tractor. Its cleated tracks gripped sand and mud on land and worked as paddles in the water, which let it do what boats could not: crawl over the coral reefs that…0
  2. 2Volkswagen SchwimmwagenVolkswagen SchwimmwagenWith 15,584 built between 1941 and 1944, most of them at the Volkswagen works in Fallersleben, the Type 166 is usually counted as the most-produced amphibious car in history. It earned those numbers by being simple: a small air-cooled engine of 1,131 cc, four-wheel drive in first gear, and a…0
  3. 3Ford GPAFord GPAThe amphibious jeep is here as the honest counterexample. About 12,778 were built in 1942 and 1943, but the Seep sat lower in the water than its designers intended, could not safely carry much cargo, got very wet in a chop, and its bilge pump could not keep up in moderate seas. It was far less…0
  4. 4DUKWDUKWIf one amphibious vehicle proves the idea works, it is this six-wheel-drive truck. Production reached 21,147 by the end of the war, and its hull was drawn by the yacht designer Roderick Stephens, which helps explain why a 2½-ton cargo truck behaved like a seaworthy boat rather than a floating…0
  5. 5AmphicarAmphicarAmphicar 770 The classic amphibious car for private buyers, with 3,878 built. The name gives its limits away: 7 knots on the water and 70 mph on land. A Triumph Herald 1200 engine in the rear drove the back wheels and twin propellers, and the front wheels did the steering afloat, which made it far…0
  6. 6Alvis StalwartAlvis StalwartBritain's answer to the DUKW was a far tougher off-road truck that happened to swim. About 1,100 were built, it entered British Army service in 1963 and stayed for almost thirty years, and in the water two Dowty water-jet units pushed it along at about 6 mph. The trade-offs are typical of the…0
  7. 7LARC-VLARC-VThe LARC-V took the DUKW's job and built it from aluminum, which spares it the rust that eats steel amphibians. It carries 5 tons, or up to 20 passengers, and manages about 7.5 knots in the water and 30 mph on land. The US Army used it extensively for supply over the beach in Vietnam, where about…0
  8. 8Argo (ATV manufacturer)Argo (ATV manufacturer)Argo 6x6 and 8x8 amphibious XTVs Ontario Drive & Gear introduced the first Argo in 1967, a six-wheel skid-steer machine named for the Argonauts of Greek myth, and the Canadian amphibious off-roader now comes in six- and eight-wheel forms. It does not pretend to be a boat: its tires move it through…0
  9. 9Assault Amphibious VehicleAssault Amphibious VehicleAAV-7 First introduced in 1972, the tracked AAV-7 spent decades as the US Marine Corps' main way of carrying troops from ship to shore, the direct heir of the wartime amphibian tractors. Long service also exposed its limits. It is slow in the water and lightly armored, and in July 2020 an AAV…0
  10. 10Bandvagn 206Bandvagn 206Hägglunds Bv 206 Sweden's two-car tracked carrier is the amphibian most people never think of as one. Its ground pressure is so low it can cross loose snow without sinking, and when it reaches open water it simply keeps going, its tracks pushing it along at about 3 mph. That swim is slow, but it…0