Jam-beater making waves

By ALASTAIR SLOANE

Tired of battling bridge traffic to and from Auckland City each morning and evening? Don't support the idea of another bridge or a tunnel to ease motorway congestion?

Well, think outside the traffic planners' square and get into a British-made Dutton Commander, a four-wheel-drive, glass-fibre amphibious car licensed for road and marine use. That way you can enjoy a harbour crossing without traffic hassles or ferry timetables.

One Devonport resident intends to do exactly that next year. "We've taken a deposit from him on a short-wheelbase, four-seater Commander," said Tony Waterman, a partner in Extreme Vehicles, the Whitford-based Dutton importer.

"He plans to drive across the harbour to the Okahu Bay yacht ramp and into the city from there. The car doesn't even have to be washed down.

"We reckon the crossing will take about 15 minutes. It would be nice to get a ramp closer to the city. We are looking at that."

What if the water is too rough? "Then he can drive to work as usual on the road. If conditions improve later in the day, he can drive home across the harbour."

Waterman expects the Dutton to be approved for use in New Zealand by road and maritime authorities and insurers when he lands the first Commander, a long-wheelbase seven-seater, later this year.

He says the seven-seater lends itself to promotional work especially. "We have put a proposal to Coca-Cola to turn it into a lookalike Coke bottle, with half a fibreglass bottle at the front and half at the rear.

"We don't need to change the vehicle's structure. We couldn't anyway because it wouldn't get a licence. Another firm, a high-tech operation, is also looking at its promotional potential."

The four-seater Dutton will cost $90,000, the seven-seater about $100,000. The amphibious car is based on the four-wheel-drive Suzuki Samuari and is built by Sussex-based Dutton Marine, a division of Dutton Cars, once the largest kit-car company in the world.

It is built as a boat that can be driven on the road, rather than a car that can be driven on water, and meets international design regulations, including Germany's ultra-tough TUV standard.

More than 90 per cent of production is exported, mostly to Europe and the US. Britons buy six a month. Dutton describes it as the only legal amphibian for civilian use in the world.

The Commander is powered by a 1.9-litre Suzuki diesel engine developing 85kW/114Nm and mated to a five-speed manual gearbox.

On road, the gearbox drives the front wheels. Off-road, high- and low-ratio four-wheel-drive is available. In the water, the power takeoff driving an 8-inch impeller gives the car a speed of 10km/h, or 5.2 knots.

The Commander is 4720mm long, 1680mm wide and 1630mm high. Its ride height in water is 1040mm. It weighs 1150kg unladen and ground clearance is 200mm.

To eliminate the need for a chassis, the Commander's hull and deck are manufactured as one-piece glass-fibre mouldings and bonded together to form a monocoque self-coloured structure.

The load-bearing areas - engine, gearbox, transfer box, steering, front and rear axles, shock absorbers and so on - have marine-grade stainless steel spreader plates imbedded into the laminate.

Dutton says the stainless steel prop shafts - the only components going through the hull - are specially sealed.

So are the headlights, protected with 8mm acrylic to stop the glass cracking in cold water.

Dutton provides a driver's guide:

On land the car drives just like a Suzuki. The jet steering is permanently coupled to the road steering. To drive into water simply follow the instructions printed on the sun visor:

* Turn all three bilge switches to "auto" (normally always kept in auto).

* Put foot on clutch (car can still be rolling forward, for example, down a slipway).

* Engage jet clutch lever (marked red). Check jet forward/reverse lever (marked black) is in forward position. Take foot off clutch and drive or roll down to water.

* When in water put foot on clutch, put transfer box lever (marked black) into neutral and gearbox into third and off you go. Water speed is controlled by the car accelerator pedal.

To leave water:

* Put foot on clutch and engage transfer box lever (marked black) into 4WD and gearbox lever into first.

* When wheels touch land take foot of clutch and drive out of water. Put jet clutch lever (marked red) into neutral.

* While driving, disengage foot clutch and move transfer box lever from 4WD low to 2WD high and off you go.

* It is recommended you drive with the brakes lightly on for a few hundred metres to warm them up (this will stop them sticking if you park and leave the handbrake on).

The firm says its Commander is protected against a phenomenon called "axle suck".

"When a car is driven on the road the brakes and axles heat up. If the car is then driven into cold water the temperature of the axles suddenly drops. This causes the air trapped inside the axles to contract so quickly that the negative pressure actually sucks water past the oil seals into the axle with dire results.

"On the Dutton, both axles are vented to air well above the water line so any sudden pressure drop is accommodated with no effect."

The exhaust system is protected, too. "Auto silencers are filled with fibre wadding. When this gets wet it blocks the system and either the engine won't turn over or it starts and the exhaust blows up.

"To overcome this the Dutton stainless steel system uses a perforated tube-type silencer that does not contain any wadding. If the car is left in water and the silencer fills up simply turning the engine with the starter motor clears out the system. Also incorporated into the system is a high U-bend that stops any water from being drawn back into the engine."

How about servicing? "None of the Suzuki components (other than the transfer box and the fitting of stainless steel sleeves on underwater rotating parts) are modified, which means that if any servicing/repair work is required any competent garage can undertake it.

"Also, spares will be available anywhere in the world where Suzuki vehicles are sold. We recommend that the underside of the car is examined once a year."

Dutton Cars was started by British tool-maker Tim Dutton Woolley in 1970. He built his first car in 1969 but decided against naming it Woolley, for obvious reasons.

The company produced more than 8000 kit cars until 1989, when Woolley began designing purpose-built vehicles, from 10-seater station wagons to large golf buggies.

In 1994, he moved into amphibian cars and got publicity for his first model by driving it across the English Channel to France. "Halfway across the state of the sea was whipped up by Force 4 winds and the Dutton took it in its stride," he said.

But it is Woolley's 1982 row with Ford that earned him a reputation as a maverick.

In 1979, he built an off-road kit vehicle called the Sierra. Three years later, Ford Motor Co wrote to him, saying it wanted to call its Cortina replacement the Sierra and gave him three months to stop using the name.

Woolley told Ford to jump in the lake. A year of discussions between the parties came to nothing and they ended up in a London court.

The case took five days and Ford lost. "We continued to use the name Sierra until its production ceased in 1989," said Woolley.