Amphicar’s Graduation

By Craig Ranson
By Craig Ranson

Managing Director – Bridge Classic Cars

We’re delighted to announce that our Amphicar has graduated to become a boat! After its previous inspection by Colin from Wherry Boat Yard, we got the final thumbs-up last week to confirm that the Amphicar passed its certificate to classify it as a boat!

You can take a look at the official paperwork below to see the exact classifications. There’s also been some other small work such as the Bilge pump switches being prewired and the holes prepped by our electric specialist Adam. He’s also made sure that the lights work too.

Our trim shop has added a piece of vinyl in behind the rear seat to tidy it up as seen below.

All the switches have now been labelled with bespoke colour coordinated labels.

You can also see here its first start up. We’re excited to get it out on the water for the first time, soon, to see how it fairs and what needs to be done next.

In order to pass the assessment we needed to make the necessary changes below. The fuel hose needed to be fitted that could withstand 600 degrees, ISO7840 for two hours. Due to the age of the car we considered the existing bilge pump not to be adequate and capable of adhering to the latest legislation so we decided to fit two pulse operated bilge pumps that look for water and when detecting it will start and pump out of the rear. We decided to fit two of these as always health and safety is our paramount concern and have given two totally independent systems with separate exit from the rear of the vehicle.

The fire extinguisher has also been fitted and the pipe flaring has been carried out. To comply with current legislation we have changed the set up of the fuel system to withdraw fuel from the top of the tank through a stainless steel shut off valve.

We have also installed an electrical cut off switch and solder jointed cables to the battery terminal.

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