When Bill Boulware drives his aqua-colored convertible down the boat ramp and straight into the drink, eyes bug out. When the car floats and the propellers are put in gear, jaws drop open. Boulware loves to see the expressions on people’s faces when he takes his 1966 Amphicar out for a spin in the water with its telltale license plate “H20 CAR.”

“They go goofy,” the 73-year-old Salem man said.

The Amphicar, designed and built in Germany, is the only civilian amphibious passenger automobile ever mass produced. About 4,400 were made from 1961-68.

Amphicar expert Hugh Gordon estimated that 2,500 of the cars are left today worldwide, of which perhaps only 1,000 are road- and seaworthy.
One is right here in Salem. You recently might have seen it tooling along the Willamette River near Riverfront and Wallace Marine parks, perhaps “racing” the Willamette Queen sternwheeler.

Diana Kerp and Rory Posterick both saw it last week, and they couldn’t help but gawk.

“That’s just the cutest thing,” said Kerp, who was launching a boat with her husband and a friend.

“I’ve seen half a dozen in the water before, but never that nice,” said Posterick, who was bass fishing in the slough. “Most of them are rusted out. He’s taken care of it.”

Boulware bought his Amphicar brand new 37 years ago and has coddled it ever since. He and his family have enjoyed many hours of leisure, from cruising to fishing.

“Oh, we’ve had a lot of fun in this thing,” he said.

Some of the most fun has come in watching the reaction of stunned bystanders whenever he puts the car in the water. Many times boaters have raced across a river or a lake to save him because they thought his brakes had failed. By the time they reach him, he has his fishing line in. During a recent sunny afternoon, Boulware demonstrated the car’s seaworthiness on the Willamette. A jogger stopped to watch the launch. Other park goers hollered from the dock and beach.

“Awesome!” yelled one teenage boy from the shore. “I want one.”

Boulware paid $3,350 for his Amphicar in 1966. The sticker price was expensive compared with the Volkswagen Beetle, which sold for less than $2,000 at that time.

“For a fireman, that was practically a year’s salary,” said Boulware, who worked for the Sacramento Fire Department for 32 years.

He does not know exactly how much his car is worth today, but he turned down a $16,000 offer from a man last year.

“Please, don’t insult me,” he told the inquirer.

Experts say a rust-free running/ swimming Amphicar would fetch between $10,000 and $50,000, depending on the condition of the vehicle. Boulware’s Amphicar looks to be in great shape. It has just more than 37,000 miles on the odometer, but that’s just road miles; it doesn’t keep track when in water. He figures he has logged 600 hours afloat. There are just a few nicks around the edges of the doors and one half-dollar-sized blemish on the right rear quarterpanel. Years ago, someone backed into him — on the road, not in the water — and he had to repair the left quarter panel. The car was repainted several years ago, and matching the original fjord green color proved difficult.
Boulware doubts he will ever sell the car, which gets good gas mileage at 32 miles per gallon.

“I’ve got four sons,” he said. “If I sold this car, they’d collectively hang me.”

Amphicars were designed with a four-cylinder, 43-horsepower Triumph Herald motor that is capable of reaching top speeds of 7 knots in the water (about 8 mph) and 70 mph on land. In the water, the power to the rear wheels is transferred to two nylon props — located where exhaust pipes are on regular cars — and the front wheels act as rudders. The hull of the car is sealed, and the doors and frames have double seals. There is a second door handle inside that sucks the two seals watertight.

“I’ve never had a drop of water in the door seals,” Boulware said.

Getting an Amphicar ready for launch is much easier than any boat: Put the drain plug in, don the life vests and lock the second door handles. As with other boats, however, the Amphicar has a full complement of required maritime equipment: a marine horn, front and rear navigation lights and a bilge pump to expel any water that may splash or leak aboard. Boulware keeps life vests, an anchor and a tow line in the forward luggage compartment. The car has a handle throttle on the dash — a precursor to today’s cruise control — so Boulware doesn’t have to keep his foot on the gas pedal when in water. He has had few mechanical problems with his Amphicar. The clutch went out recently, and he has had the engine overhauled once.

“It’s running just as good today as the day we drove it off the floor,” he said.

If mechanical problems arise, parts are readily available. Gordon, the Amphicar expert, bought the inventory of parts left over from production of Amphicars in 1980 and has a warehouse full in Santa Fe Springs, Calif. He has owned several Amphicars through the years and is considered an authority on repair and restoration.

“They’re so captivating,” Gordon said from his summer home in Michigan. “Once you’ve had the experience, you don’t forget about it.”

The Amphicar has been popular for some notable Americans, including President Lyndon Johnson, actors Ted Danson and Dan Aykroyd, and pop star Madonna. Gordon said the car is not for everyone.

“As an amphibian, it’s first rate,” he said. “As a car, it’s limited.

“It’s probably not as bouncy as a Jeep, but it still has its quirks. It has a short wheel base, and it sits high off the ground.”

Boulware bragged about the time years ago when he towed a 24-foot cruiser four miles up the Sacramento River.

“And it never heated up on me,” he said.

The Amphicar’s unexpected power is not what makes it so alluring. It is the oddity of being able to travel on land and water.

“Young kids, it just tickles the daylights out of them,” Boulware said. “They’ve never heard of one. Lots of people, even my age, have never heard of the darned thing.”