Our old friends at Swiss tuning, restoration, and general ride-pimping expert
Rinspeed are back with perhaps their most ambitious project to date: a fully-submersible concept car dubbed the sQuba that's equally at home on the road or under the sea. Set to be unveiled next March at the Geneva Motor Show, the multi-faceted, electric motor-powered vehicle reminds us somewhat of the
Gibbs Aquada and
Hydra Spyder, except the sQuba is actually able to dive and navigate up to ten meters underwater thanks to jet drives in the bow and propellers in the stern. A self-contained, on-board system inside the carbon nanotube-based body structure provides occupants with fresh air while submerged, although the engineers probably let down more than a few folks by omitting a weapons system of any kind. No release date yet -- or even production plans -- for this one-off supercar, which, might we be so bold to suggest, would make a hell of a better-looking crime-fighter than you,
Mr. Knight Industries Three Thousand. Bigger pics in the gallery below...
posted December 26th 2007 4:50PM
So, kinda like the Mach 5?
Or James Bond's Lotus from "The Spy Who Loved Me".
Naa, not like the Mach 5... it needs a periscope.
does it at least go chitty-chitty-bang-bang?
I love that the roof is down underwater. That must make for poor breathing conditions.
lol. I noticed that as well. I guess if it starts raining you can put it back up.
Sure... I'll TAKE IT!
nah, i'd rather have a hovercar or something to that effect.
Those are pictures of a Lotus Elise, with poor photoshop skills applied.
Is engadget tracking our ip's? I can only login into my profile from my home computer? is this true for anyone else?
I wonder if AAA will come get me if I run out of gas...
Awww crap.
I'm fired.
Worst. Renders. Ever.
Why the hell is the roof down?
It's a little thing called humor.
Actually, my apologies. I RTFA just now, I thought that pic was an Engadget photoshop.
If the cockpit were watertight, the vehicle would need to weigh several tons to have neutral buoyancy.
Wow, only 10 metres?
I know, today's vehicles can already go WAY deeper than 10 metres, but the living conditions aren't very good in them.
Only 10 Metres? LOL
I'm impressed it can go that far. It takes quite a bit of engineering to make something withstand 32 feet of water that has car doors on it.
Nevermind the fact that it apparently has force fields akin to the structural integrity fields in Star Trek. How else can you explain an underwater convertible?
Is the convertible top down???
Not much good then is it? I see the driver is no longer in the car... he/she should have doubled checked the car before scuba diving with it.
I can just see this in the future owner's manual
::High-Speed Pursuit in Progress::
Suspect has merged from Interstate-5 onto the 8 heading west.
Suspect has exited West Mission Bay Drive approaching 120mph.
Suspect has now exited onto the North Pacific Ocean.
Are you sure he's not approaching Fiesta Island?
Reminds me too much of a Telsa, which reminds me too much of a Lotus, which then further reminds me of the fact that Lotus helped to develop the Tesla roadster.
Yeah, I'm not so sure I'd feel safe submerging with no freaking top.
Other than that, it seems pretty cool. Not the first concept to do this, but I do like the way it provides oxygen to it's drivers.
i noticed the top was down too, but i also noticed that the windshield wiper is ready. I don't think it would do much good underwater.
I guess you could try to scrape the jellyfish off your windshield, but the washer won't work too well.
Yes! Now we can expand the world of auto collisions into the watery realms!
right when you thought drunk driving above ground sucked.
Now, being ambitious is one thing, but making the first-ever car/submarine... a convertible?!?
Hope KITT can do this in the new Knight Rider series
This ruins the fun of dumping the car in a lake.
My first question is: WHY?
I can understand a car converting into a boat. That actually makes sense for people who have to take ferry's all the time. You could easily make one that performs both jobs adequately with a respectable level of safety. It would save time and money which would be an efficient use of resources.
How many people actually need a CAR and a SUBMARINE? Of those people, who would benefit from the cost savings of merging the technologies?
Not to mention the technical difficulties of making a model that could perform both jobs well and be SAFE at the same time.
Unless Q handed me the keys and explained it a little bit, I think I would feel nervous just getting into it.
is it just me or are those just pictures of an open top convertable on an ocean background?
I hate it when they leave out the weapons system...
If they throw in a Bond girl I'll get it.
who is goin to throw down some serious cash to a company who makes mockups like that?
Electric motor under water? Slight leak and .....
HUMANITY! Do You Live In Fear That You Have Only Fucked Up 30% Of The Earth's Surface? Would You Like To Pollute EVEN MORE And Aim For EVERY Environment On The Planet?
WELL THERE'S GOOD NEWS!
Now you can pollute both the land AND the sea, with the new sQuba car. Are your highways covered in litter, making the drive to work less scenic? Now you can drive to work underwater, and start the whole process in a part of the Earth we've only slightly damaged thus far!
Impress your friends with something that has no practical value or logical use! Drive through coral reefs like they aren't even there! You can do it all with sQuba!
And hey! Are you sick of just hitting and killing dogs, cats, deer, raccoons, squirrels, kangaroos, and people while cruising in your car? Now you can add a whole new list of living things to your roadkill list! Why, we bet you'll kill things you can't even see, but which are still vitally important to the ecosystem, and perhaps jeopardizes the world's being able to support life as we know it!
Act now, and get a free "I Don't Give A Damn!" T-shirt.
Derrrr it's electric powered...
i often have dreams of plowing down dolphins with a car... hm... you just gave me an awesome idea!
Speed Limit: 5 knots
Sonar Enforced.
Violators will be depth charged.
Here he comes
Here comes Speed Racer
He's a demon on wheels
He's a demon and he's gonna be chasin' after someone.
He's gainin' on you so you better look alive.
He's busy revvin' up a powerful Mach 5.
And when the odds are against him
And there's dangerous work to do
You bet your life Speed Racer
Will see it through.
Finally another place I can pollute!
Lol
A driving and diving.....CONVERTIBLE car....
....
hehe
Now just make it fly, and you can go wherever GPS tells you to go!
* Get a pirate copy of 3DStudio
* Make some bullsh*t renders of a concept car
* Pretend to be a company and issue bogus press release
* Profit!
this is only being made so that when the earth floods, only those who are rich and actually buy these cars, and own submarines live.
now i really WANT/HOPEFULLY_NEVER_NEED one.
chris.christner@gmail.com
That would suck to be under water and hot box the car........ if you just crack the window would that kinda make it a gravity bong? lol wtf.
Wow! The perfect car for those late night jaunts when you've had a few too many and the road's dark and Mary Jo won't shut up so I can drive and that gosh-darned Chappaquiddick bridge doesn't have guardrails...
Anyway, nice car for a swim.
Can you imagine the weird insurance claims on this, "So sir, you turned right at Hudson bay and hit a whale"