KARACHI: Many people stranded at home during the recent rains and subsequent urban flooding in the city wished for a car with boat features that they could take out in the water.

Many people saw the four-wheeler Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) as that kind of a car. But there actually is a car that can work as a boat.

The Amphibious Car, or Amphicar, was such a before it`s time vehicle. It was manufactured in West Germany where it`s designer, Hans Trippel, used technology from wartime amphibious vehicles to build the world`s first such commercially available car. Though manufactured in Germany, the Amphicar was launched at the New York Auto Show in 1961.

Sadly, the car`s manufacturer stopped production in 1965. Todaythere are very few Amphicars left in the world and one of them recently emerged in a WhatsApp group of classic car collectors and enthusiasts. Even rare for this car is that it is right-hand driven as most of these cars were lef thand drive to suit the US market where they have plenty of lakes.

The Amphicar is currently owned by classic car collector Razi Nayyer.

He was the one who posted a picture of his beloved Amphicar in the group saying: `Karachi will never change so I am going to get my Amphicar ready before the next monsoon.

Nayyer told Dawn that he fell in love with the Amphicar when he first read about it as a little boy.

`I had read that the US President Lindon Johnson owned two Amphicars and he would enjoy taking his guests out on a ride in the cars. He would of ten joke with them by taking them into a lake in the car and informing them that he cannot turn around as his brakes had f ailed. That`s when I also wanted the car. I was f ascinated with it,` he said.

`And one day I happened to see the very vehicle at the house of another collector of vintage and classic cars, my friend Imad Samad. Often after that when I would visit him, I would be looking at the car longingly. Then one day, Imad Bhai asked me if I would be interested in buying it from him since I was obviously quite crazy about it. I didn`t waste a moment in taking it off his hands then, said Nayyer.

`That was in 2011. The heavy rains when water entered the homes of people happened in Karachi was in 2020.

`Necessity is the mother of invention`. My f ascination with the Amphicar turned into a need after my home at Khayaban-i-Tanzeem in DHA Phase-V got flooded.

`Right now if I bring this car out, it, too, will get flooded and sink like a broken boat because with time it`s seals have opened. To make my Amphicar roadworthy again I need to travel abroad to buy new parts for it.

The company that had manufactured it is closed now but I know of others dedicated in making spare parts for it to this day.

`Due to the serious Covid-19 situation in 2020 and 2021, I was unable to travel abroad, but I`m determined to do it now,` he said.

Speaking to Dawn, the Amphicar`s first owner, Imad Samad, another lover of classic cars and a member of the Vintage and Classic Cars Club of Pakistan, said that he had bought the car in 1993 from the late Adnan Bhabha, son of Yusuf Bhabha, who owned Intercontinental Motors in Saddar, near Fawara Chowk.

`There were a few Amphicars there gathering dust at the time and most of them were lef t-hand drive. There are only 103 right-hand drive Amphicars in the world and this one is numbered 099, so it is quite a rare model. It is a 770 Amphicar, model 1966. Though production of the car had stopped in 1965 due to lack of demand it was distributed in the market till 1968,` he said.

After buying the Amphicar from Bhabha, Samad restored it. `It was a regular delight for onlookers when I would drive it around in the creek waters around the DHA Marina Club in Phase-VIII. We would receive standing ovations,` he shared fondly.

`Now the same will happen when Nayyer brings it out on the flooded roads of Karachi,` he smiles.