Amphibious cars: they predate the automobile and are a hit at the movies. The most famous

In the field of transportation, there is no limit to innovation, and there was none, especially in the early part of the last century, when it was common to see a huge airship filled with helium (or hydrogen, before 1937, when the Zeppelin Hindenburg burned down in New York) and loaded with passengers in the sky, or prototype hydrofoils hurtling across lakes. Why, then, not design a car capable of crossing waterways? The concept of the amphibious car , in reality, had been born much earlier. In 1770, the Prince of Sansevero, Raimondo di Sangro, who adorned his family chapel with the Veiled Christ, had created a "maritime carriage" capable of floating just like a boat in the Gulf of Naples; in 1775, Oliver Evans had conceived of a model for an amphibious steam-powered vehicle. After years of experimentation, which resulted in the creation of vehicles like Itala's Autoblinda Anfibio (produced in Turin in 1929), during World War II, motorized amphibious vehicles became essential tools for armies, allowing them to reach remote or isolated locations at a time when it was not difficult to find a destroyed bridge. This gave rise to vehicles like the Volkswagen Schwimmwagen , a German 4x4 with a gasoline engine and a small folding propeller, or the American six-wheeled Dukw . After the war, the idea of a car that could be driven on water continued to stimulate the imagination of engineers and designers. In August 1967, a famous article in the Corriere dei Piccoli mentioned amphibious cars among the vehicles that would populate roads, seas, and skies in the 2000s. But, partly due to design challenges and partly due to the limited need for cars capable of crossing seas and rivers in a world where it's easier to hop on a ferry or find a driveway , amphibious cars have remained distant dreams or, for courageous inventors, prototypes with which to break records and explore new horizons. Here are some of the most famous and unique amphibious cars ever built.