Amphibious vehicles are hardly new, but we thought this one was worth a closer look. Meet the Hafencity Riverbus, which carries sightseers through the roads and waters of Hamburg, Germany.
Next time you’re in Hamburg, you definitely need to buy the ticket and take the ride. For 29 Euros (around 29 bucks) you can take a 70-minute tour of the Hafencity area and the Elbe River in this marvelous machine, the Hafencity RIverbus. Designed to meet the extremely strict regulations of both the road and waterway authorities in Germany, the bus was engineered and built over a four year period, and it has has been operating successfully in the city since last April. If the first amphibious bus proves successful, the company hopes to build five to seven more.
The chassis is a standard MAN truck unit with a conventional diesel drivetrain, while the body, which incorporates a sealed hull, naturally, was built by a Hungarian firm. Water propulsion is provided by two jet drives that are good for 7 knots on the aqueous portion of the route. Now watch this.
Sure does look more comfy than any of the repurposed DUKWs I’ve been on. I wonder what sort of emergency exit provisions it has. The DUKWs have a canopy overhead but are open at the sides in the event one needs to leave because it starts taking on water.