High Speed Amphibians
Frustrated by the extreme tidal nature of the Kaipara Harbour, that forms the western boundary of his farm, Gibbs began experimenting with amphibious vehicles in the early 1990s. In 1997 he began to develop the concept in Detroit. Gibbs relocated the project to the United Kingdom in 1999. He partnered with Neil Jenkins who became CEO and based the operation at Nuneaton. Over the next four years they developed the concept to the point that the Aquada, the world’s first road legal, high speed amphibian, was shown to the public in September 2003. In June 2004 Richard Branson drove an Aquada to break the record for an amphibious crossing of the English Channel. In 2007 a new division of the business was set up in Detroit Michigan. A major R & D program has been undertaken in Auckland New Zealand since 2004. Two new high speed amphibians, the Humdinga and the Phibian were released in Washington in 2012 and it is understood a third the Quadski will be put on the market late in 2012.
Read more about this topic: Alan Gibbs
Famous quotes containing the words high and/or speed:
“Like an unseasonable stormy day,
Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
As if the world were all dissolved to tears,
So high above his limits swells the rage
Of Bolingbroke.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“It was undoubtedly the feeling of exile—that sensation of a void within which never left us, that irrational longing to hark back to the past or else to speed up the march of time, and those keen shafts of memory that stung like fire.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)