That lotus esprit that sped across the water in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me was more fantasy than fact. To date the only amphibious passenger car ever mass-produced (3,878 units) was the Amphicar, made from 1961 to 1968 by a West German outfit called Schwimmwagen. The cute, snub-nosed convertible did 70mph on land, but plied the waves at a sedate 7mph. More recent amphibians have hit higher velocities on water but still haven't achieved mass-market status. In 1993 Richard Dobbertin, then a 41-year-old auto mechanic in Syracuse, N.Y., decided he and his wife would circumnavigate the globe in a milk truck. He bought a used 30,000-gal-lon tanker for $4,000. Then, like Phileas Fogg with a plasma torch, he spent two years modifying the elliptical steel, container. He added a sleek, cone-shaped nose and built a cockpit with dials and digital monitors to rival a jet fighter's. (Twin steering wheels protruding from the dashboard---one for land, one for water---detracted somewhat from the elegance of the engineering.) The interior had beds, a small kitchen and a toilet. Storage drums held 40 gallons of water and 340 gallons of diesel fuel.
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