This car mechanic makes amphibious vehicles

pulse

May 1, 2018 6:47 PM

Theon Parseghian is a mechanic from upstate New York who completely transforms old vehicles by making them amphibious. He's rebuilt a Volvo station wagon and a houseboat to master both land and sea.

Theon Parseghian is a mechanic from upstate New York who completely transforms old vehicles by making them amphibious. He's rebuilt a Volvo station wagon and a houseboat to master both land and sea. The following is a transcript of the video.

These vehicles conquer water and land. They're creations by Theon Parseghian. During the day, he restores and repairs classic cars. In his free time, he works on his own amphibious creations.

Theon Parseghian: Naturally when you're into cars, you gotta be into fixing and repair work. So you pick up a lot of skills with that with welding and fabricating, and machining, and it just builds on top of that.

Theon's first creation was an amphibious Volvo station wagon.

Theon: Initially, I wanted to cross the lakes and have a boat of some kind. And it just always seemed like a good idea to have a car that could go in the water. I couldn’t afford to buy one obviously, and there aren't actually that many around that you can buy that function so, you gotta build it. So that’s what I did.

Theon added a jet pump in the rear. It can reach highway speeds on the road and 10 mph on water. It cost $5,000 to make. His next project was a lot larger.

Theon: I got the houseboat as a rusted-out project that somebody had given up on and I kind of did my brainstorming. I initially had no intention of making it amphibious or anything like that. We came up with putting wheels on it and making it amphibious. And we sourced around for some parts, found this old sprayer — basically had everything we needed to put the conversion together.

The build took Theon one year to complete. He built most of it in his front yard. People driving down his street took notice. So Theon announced his maiden voyage on Facebook. To his surprise, a crowd of people showed up.

Theon: Pressure's on, whether it works or not and thankfully it did, it worked flawlessly. And it had a great turnout. Everybody had a good time and we got to go boating. So, that was fun.

The houseboat only goes 20 mph on land. And about seven mph on water. It cost him $10,000 to make. Theon has plans to improve the houseboat and Volvo. But his current project is more ambitious.

Theon: So the next amphibious vehicle I’m going to be building is gonna be an all-aluminum-body vehicle. I’m basically just going to build it from scratch. It’s going to be three wheels hopefully, super light and hopefully, super fast, that’s the plan.

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