This monster may look like a creation of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells, but it was actually built in the 1930s for oil exploration in the Louisiana bayou country.

Photos of this bizarre vehicle have been making the rounds of the internet for a few years now, but without much info, unfortunately, so we thought we’d see what we could find out. Luckily for us, the workbench magazine Popular Science, a national treasure in our view, did a cover story on the beast for its March 1937 issue, and we wanted to share what we’ve learned thus far.

According to the Pop Sci article, the machine was conceived by Abbot A. Lane of the Gulf Research and Development Company, a subsidiary of the Gulf Oil Company, for petroleum exploration in the wetlands of Texas and Louisiana. A key part of this work, reportedly, was using dynamite charges and seismographic recorders to search for potential oil deposits. Naturally, this required a vehicle that could carry significant (and sensitive) cargo and penetrate deep into the bayou country, where ordinary cars and boats often couldn’t go.

Countless strange machines have been built over the years for getting through the swamps, from airboats to radically lifted Jeeps. Like us, you probably thought of the Naples, Florida swamp buggy races, as made famous by the old Diamond P Cavalcade of Sports program on Sunday afternoon cable television in the USA.

The vehicle description is tantalizingly vague: The engine (see above) is described only as “a standard eight-cylinder automobile motor of popular make.” What could it be, we wonder? A Ford V8? Maybe a Buick or Packard straight eight? Power thence flowed through a three-speed passenger car transmission in tandem with a tractor gearbox to provide ten forward gears and six in reverse; meanwhile, the front wheels were propelled by auxiliary chains to provide four-wheel drive. Top speed was said to be 35 mph on pavement, 10 mph on swampland, and six knots in the water. Flotation was provided by the giant ten-ft tires, while individual brakes on all four wheels aided in steering.

We don’t know what became of the Gulf Marsh Buggy, as it seems to have been called. Photos show an enclosed cab on what could be this same vehicle or a Mark II version. But it is known, or at least it has been reported, that the same enormous Goodyear tires constructed for this monster were also used on Admiral Richard Byrd’s Antarctic Snow Cruiser. (Read about it here.) That equally strange machine ended up on the bottom of the ocean, presumably, but where the Marsh Buggy eventually landed, we can’t say.