The most ridiculous car for a speed-distance rally

I absolutely love the stories told by the guests on the VINwiki channel. These stories all feature some of the most insane tales of automotive craziness as told by the people who experienced them first hand, and they always tell their tales so well.

In this particular episode, Hagerty Insurance sales manager Brad Phillips recounts the time he decided to join Hemmings’ Great Race, a time-distance rally from Tennessee to Vermont, in a… well let’s just say, it was an unusual choice of rides. Phillips and his team headed to Chattanooga to start the rally in an Amphicar, one of those quirky little rides that is capable of driving right into the water and functioning like a boat. Phillips had grand visions of taking guests for rides on the road and the water in the borrowed Amphicar, but parts breakage on the first day squashed that dream before he had the chance to follow through.

Instead of just waving the white flag and loading up and going home, Brad and his team loaded up the Amphicar on their support trailer and hauled butt to Nashville, unloaded the Amphicar and picked up Brad’s Porsche, then hauled butt back to the rally’s next stop in Virginia. However, as they rejoined the participants they found the Porsche’s shifter was broken and needed to be swapped before they could re-rejoin the festivities.

Of course, getting a late start put them behind most of the rally’s participants, but that also gave them the opportunity to do little spirited driving to make up for the lost time spent changing the shifter. With only so much room to make up ground before hitting the check point, they would pass everybody in the pack and return to their designated position in the lineup. They ended up clearing the finish line six seconds ahead of time after getting a late start swapping the shifter and passing dozens of fellow participants.