Fed up with your Ferrari? Lamborghini a bit lame? Rarely get a reason to take your dinghy out of the shed? Haven’t scared the neighbors for a while? If you've answered yes to at least three of these questions, then the Scamander RRV could be just what you’re looking for. Before his death in June this year, former-TVR owner Peter Wheeler built the Scamander RRV (rapid response vehicle), a car that could drive on track, off-road or even on the water, all while carrying four people.
TVR has enjoyed a long-standing reputation among car enthusiasts for creating something different and the Scamander topped that list. When Wheeler sold the TVR company to Nikolai Smolenski in 2005, he took the opportunity to build a car that captured his passion for driving fast with the ability to literally go anywhere.
He said once he sold the business to Smolenski it freed him up to get cracking on the RRV (with a team of up to eight engineers).
Wheeler was quoted in EVO magazine last year as saying he created the ScamanderV for himself as he “enjoyed shooting, sailing and driving on track, so I wanted something that could cover all these elements. I call it an RRV, for rapid response vehicle. Just don’t call it a car…”
It floats
He built it as light and as simple as possible. He designed massive 35-inch diameter tires to function like those on a tractor and removable paddles for the only driven wheels, the rear ones. The body is foam-filled plastic pods fixed to a central aluminum tub. This prototype is powered by a 2.0-liter Ford Zetec engine, but Wheeler said he intended the finished product to use the light, simple 4.6-liter Rover V8 that he had so much luck with at TVR.
For driving pleasure, the huge canopy affords the centrally-located driver enhanced vision while the passengers are rather awkwardly tucked away behind him.
Behind the passengers, under a large plastic hatch is a pickup-style bed which reveals that the RRV was purpose built as a commercial vehicle.
A remote control for the vehicle was in development too (handy when you need something to collect you from your yacht).
The bad news is that following Wheeler’s death, any hope of production of the RRV seems doomed as the project was privately-funded by the man himself.
Via Jalopnik, video (below) via Hell for Leather.
