Because we can’t resist oddball vehicles, here’s a little-known Chrysler project from 1964, the Marsh Screw Amphibian. Let’s watch the crazy beast in action.
Screw propulsion is a novel form of vehicular locomotion that is essentially as old as the automobile itself, but never quite caught on. Noteworthy examples in America include utility vehicles developed by Jacob Morath (1899) and the Peavey brothers (1907). Perhaps the most well-known application of screw drive was the Armstead Snow Motor system marketed for Fordson tractors in the 1920s, converting the farm vehicles for use in deep snow.
In the early 1960s, Chrysler Defense Engineering worked on amphibious land/water vehicles using twin helical screws, arriving at the vehicle featured in this video, the Chrysler Marsh Screw Amphibian, in 1963-64. Powered by a 225 CID Chrysler Slant Six, this machine could travel on land, swamp, or water with fair speed and impressive maneuverability. As many as 10 units were built, and at least one is still in existence, apparently, mothballed at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
While the U.S. government took a pass on the Screw Amphibian, Chrysler made use of the attention-getting machine as a public relations tool, showcasing it in double-page advertisements in Life magazine and producing this two-minute promotional clip for broadcast televsion. If nothing else, the crazy little vehicle is fun to watch. Check this out.
Good greif, MCG, would you do us a favor and start everyday with a good hearty laugh like that? Not because of the content of the video, but the “corniness” of the announcer. When he said,” here in the backwaters of Mississippi, a certain banjo tune came to mind,( which is sad, because that movie didn’t help the image of the South) but seriously, I’m familiar with the screw concept, and did some research on the Armstead vehicle, because it looked like a really novel concept, especially for 1924!
Sadly, I’m sure there’s some tree-hugging environmentalist’s coffee cup lying in pieces on the floor, as they watched in horror, the destruction this thing caused. I mean, environmentalist’s don’t even like ATV’s because of the damage they do, can you imagine a bunch of these barreling through the woods? The closing line was great, ” Through mud, snow, sludge, muck and MIRE”, and it going sideways, ripping up the soil. I believe, track vehicles do the least amount of damage to the ground, so this will always remain in the history books, as another great idea, that never took. Thanks again MCG for the chuckle.
All apologies, Howard. For some reason your replies went into the spam folder. I retrieved the above and posted it. Thanks for writing.
Thanks, could be on my end, my computer doesn’t like your site.
All of that and more. And yes the on road abilities would have been very average. Good for plowing swamps however.
Before today, I incorrectly assumed that Ford had invented this concept because I thought I remembered a clip of Henry riding something like that in the snow (perhaps on this site, I don’t remember for sure).
Anyway, I’m a little surprised it didn’t catch on with the military. Aren’t there a lot of marshy areas in Vietnam, for example?
According to Allpar.com, it was abandoned because it didn’t perform well on dry land.
Marsh Amphibian, a limited warfare vehicle designed for the Navy that could move over snow, swamps, or marshes, running on two pontoons with spiral blades, powered by a car engine. The later 1969 Riverine Water Craft improved on it, using a pair of 440 V8s and two 39” diameter aluminum rotors. It was government-tested to a top speed of 15.7 knots on water, and nearly 25 knots in marshes; but it too ran poorly on dirt, not quite reaching 4 knots (4.6 mph). No clarification on whether that was open ground or through brush.
The average human’s walking speed is between 3 and 5.5 mph.
It goes much faster in water than I would have thought!
Maybe there can be a TV show using these.
“Marsh swamp truckers”(or something similar)