Niche British sports car marque TVR once tried to build an amphibious off-roader. It was to be called the Scamander, and it turns out a working prototype still exists.
The Scamander was a pet project of Peter Wheeler, who owned TVR from 1981 to 2005. Even after selling the company, Wheeler, who died in 2009, kept working on the prototype, which is now owned by his son Joe. In a recent video from YouTube channel Harry’s Garage (via The Drive), the young Wheeler shows the ins and outs of this unique vehicle.
While it looks like an extraterrestrial military vehicle, the Scamander has a central driving position like a McLaren F1 or more recent McLaren Speedtail. It was also designed to be modular, with a rear passenger compartment that could be swapped out for a pickup bed, or even a machine gun mount.
The Scamander was always intended to be a multi-purpose vehicle. In a 2008 interview with Metcalf for Evo, Wheeler explained that he wanted a vehicle in which he could indulge his love of both track driving and outdoorsy hobbies.
The prototype originally had a 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine, but now has a 275-hp V-6 sourced from Ford. Power is sent to the rear wheels through an automatic transmission. After experimenting with rear-wheel paddles to propel the Scamander through the water, Wheeler switched to a rear-mounted propellor, similar to the arrangement used by the famous Amphicar of the 1960s.
The Scamander prototype was built as a fully drivable vehicle, although it had not been fired up for a decade before being pulled out of storage for this video.
TVR itself is still in limbo. The company has teased a new Griffith sports car since 2017, but hasn’t been able to get the V-8 car into production.