Walk into any powersports dealer and you’ll see the personal watercraft in one area and ATVs over in another area. Makes sense, one for water, one for land. The folks at Gibbs Technologies had a different thought, why not build a workable amphibian? It was a natural for them because they’ve been building high performance amphibious vehicles for quite a little while, building the Aquada, an amphibious car; the Humdinga, an amphibious 4 wheel drive vehicle, and now they’ve built the Quadski, an ATV that retracts the wheels and becomes a high speed personal watercraft.
The Quadski is no low performance compromise, either.
Quadski, which is capable of travelling up to 50 mph (72 kph) on land and water, features a proprietary marine jet propulsion system and utilises over 60 patented elements in its application of Gibbs’ patented HSA technology. Quadski’s fuel tank allows it to travel for up to two hours on
water and has a land range of 600 kilometres.The rapid transition from land to water takes less than five seconds and is operated by a flick of a switch: on entering water the wheels are retracted into the body of the vehicle. Quadski is powered by a 140 BHP petrol driven engine, which provides drive to the wheels on land and a marine
jet pump on water.
The practical applications of this technology are extremely wide ranging. The consumer market for ATVs and watercraft only scratch the surface, while search and rescue and military possibilities immediately come to mind as well.
No mention is made of price for the Quadski since that would depend on the manufacturer. Gibbs will license the technology to other companies. With luck, someone will jump on this and get to work.
UPDATE: Just announced! Quadski going on sale in USA!!
Link: Gibbs Technologies