British sports car manufacturer TVR is known for a lot of things, but flying under the radar certainly isn’t one of them. The cars it has built over the years are loud, fast, light and short on both creature comforts and safety features. So after selling TVR, former owner Peter Wheeler had a lot to live up to with his next project. Did he build a dedicated race car? A hypercar? No, he built an amphibious vehicle called the Scamander that looks like a moon rover from a video game.
Unfortunately for Wheeler, he passed away before he got to see his Scamander dreams become reality, but his team was able to at least complete the prototype seen here. A prototype that hadn’t been started up for at least a decade. Recently, though, Evo co-founder Harry Metcalfe convinced Wheeler’s son Joe to let him have a look at the Scamander prototype. Even better, he managed to convince Joe to start ‘er up and take the Scamander for a short drive.
In the time that the Scamander had been sitting, it didn’t manage to escape completely intact, but it still proved to be in surprisingly good condition. The engine started right up, the turn signals still worked, as did the brakes and the rear cameras. Even the sliding top opened and closed without causing any major problems or trapping anyone inside. For a one-off prototype that hadn’t been started since the second Obama administration, that’s pretty impressive.
We can’t imagine that Wheeler’s son has any plans to turn his dad’s out-of-this-world amphibious car into a daily driver any time soon, but with a little work, he should be able to enjoy a fun little adventure whenever he feels like it. After all, as you can see from the video, the Scamander is far from the only car that he has, and they all need their fair share of love and attention.
