Underwater car

With the “sQuba,” the world’s first real submersible car, the movie
fake now becomes reality for visitors of the Geneva Motor Show
(March 6th – 16th, 2008). Rinspeed boss Frank M. Rinderknecht (52) is
known for his extraordinary automotive creations. The acknowledged
James Bond enthusiast and Swiss automobile visionary kept revisiting
this scene in his mind over and over: “For three decades I have tried
to imagine how it might be possible to build a car that can fly under water.
Now we have made this dream come true.”

And it is this submerged stabile flight at a depth of 10 meters
that sets the “sQuba” apart from military vehicles. While the latter
can go under water, they are limited to driving slowly over the
submerged ground. Rinderknecht: “It is undoubtedly not an easy
task to make a car watertight and pressure resistant enough to be
maneuverable under water. The real challenge however was to create
a submersible car that moves like a fish in water.”

It also had to be a sports car that was converted into a diving
dream in the facilities of Swiss engineering specialist Esoro. In a
first step the combustion engine was removed and replaced by
several electric motors. Three motors are located in the rear.
One provides propulsion on land, the other two drive the screws for
underwater motoring. They are supported by two powerful Seabob
jet drives in the front, which ‘breathe’ through special rotating louvers
from HS Genion (for opening and closing the water intake).
The rotating outlet jets were designed to be extremely light yet
twist resistant by using high-tech nano materials, so-called
Carbon Nano Tubes.