Dark Roasted Blend's gallery of "Radical Screw-propelled Vehicles" is a tour through the screw-tipped evolutionary dead-end of vehicle design. Screw-propelled vehicle makers have played in the snow and mud, dabbled with amphibious and military designs, hauled lumber — but ultimately, it's a design that never seemed to catch hold.
One of the most amazing uses of screw propulsion has to be Joseph Jean de Bakker's. In the 1960s the Dutch inventor created the Amphirol, a machine designed to take anyone pretty much anywhere. What made Joseph Jean de Bakker machine better than other versions of "screwing yourself across the landscape" was its performance.
Not only could his Amphirol go across marshes and over other sticky situations but it was also amphibious. That wasn't the end of its wow factor, though, because the Amphirol could do all that and also crawl sideways. Try doing that with four wheels or with caterpillar tracks…
Radical Screw-propelled Vehicles
(Thanks, Marilyn, via Submitterator!)
(Image: amphibiousvehicle.net)
