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Memo to undecided: You have to choose between a land yacht and an expensive RV? If you can afford it, why not have both?
A South Carolina company known for its amphibious products offers the CAMI TerraWind that is equally at home on roads and rivers. Don’t trust it?
It’s advertised as “unsinkable.”
As one reviewer puts it in Car and Driver: “A motorcoach you can fish from.”
The sight of this 42.5 foot, 15.5 ton vehicle plunging into the water raises eyebrows among most spectators who wonder if their vision is failing them.
No problem.
-aJohn Giljam and his wife, Julie, are the creators of this “one-of-a-kind vehicle that combines all the comforts of a luxury recreational vehicle with the seaworthiness of a yacht and can be piloted over both land and water,” writes Car and Driver.
About that “unsinkable” aspect:
Says company literature, “Our amphibious vehicles possess the patented safety feature of being unsinkable thus making us unique. All of our amphibious vehicles are UNSINKABLE due to our patented and patent pending use of positive floatation foam.”
One evaluation of the Terra Wind describes it as a “luxurious custom-built motorhome with everything you could want from a house, including a full set of home appliances, ornate teak cabinetry with gold inlay, and a jacuzzi bath. It’s like a cruise ship on the road.”
It’s also that way on the water, according to several reports.
One says:
“The Terra Wind is not just a road vehicle, but also a boat. This is an all- terrain, 4 wheel drive, rugged beast. It has two diesel engines, a GPS mapping system, roll bars, winches, oversized floatation tires. It also has flotation foam, you could split the vehicle in quarters and it will not go down.”
The company building it is South Carolina-based CAMI (Cool Amphibious Manufacturers International), which started in 1998 after John Giljam bought an old military vehicle to operate a Jet Ski rental business.
John found the LARC-V military vehicle to use as a jet ski was fun. But that experience led to his starting the Cool Stuff Tours.
His first product was the Hydra-Terra, a 39-foot, 49-passenger commercial touring bus.
That led to other innovations such as the Terra Wind.
Oddly enough, John came from a farming background. With no technical background and barely a high school education, he started inventing his various products.
Demand became so great for their products that eventually John and Julie stopped running their own tours so they could focus solely on the production of the Hydra-Terra.
Production of the RV version got under way after John and his crew built a 42.5-foot-long, 102.0-inch-wide motor coach from scratch and mounted it onto an aluminum boat hull they also custom-built. They rigged a 330-hp diesel RV engine to power the wheels and two 19-inch bronze propellers.
The magazine reported that patented technology for many of the company’s vehicles involved how to power both the wheels and props, John installed a power takeoff on the rear of the engine. One output shaft goes to the automatic transmission and the other to the marine gearbox. The driver selects the desired mode of propulsion by switching one of the transmissions into neutral.
Test runs were reportedly nerve-wracking but worked.
With technical issues solved, the inventors went to interiors.
They went to RV dealers to compare, and ended up with a variety of high-end features.
There are granite countertops, marble tile floors, and teak cabinets.
It also has a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, a stove, a microwave oven, and a trash compactor.
The Giljams also installed a five-disc DVD changer, a surround-sound theater system, and a 42-inch plasma TV, which is mounted above the captain and co-captain’s leather chairs. There’s also a full-size Jacuzzi-and-shower combo with eight massage jets.
The bedroom and dining area includes a leather, cream-colored couch and a dinette table for two. The furniture slides out for even more space.
On land, the vehicle can reach 80 miles an hour. At sea, speeds up to 7 knots.
The Terra Wind took 19 months of development.
Reports were that the vehicle handled well both in and out of the water.
Car and Driver reported:
“The six-speed automatic transmission and the air-ride suspension provide a smooth, easy ride, and engine noise is far less intrusive on the road compared with the river-going experience.”
So by now, maybe you wonder what it cost?
Prices started at $650,000, but custom additions might make it above $1 million.
Is it worth it?
This strange beast is admittedly not practical, concludes Car and Driver.
“Of course not. But if you’re thinking of plunking down about $1 million for a luxurious RV/yacht, practicality is probably not your main concern. And in the hey-look-at-me market of unique and lavish vehicles, the Terra Wind may indeed be the ultimate in all-purpose traveling.”
So if you have $1 million or so, who needs practical?
By David Wilkening
