Tips for Leading an Adventurous Life

The deep ocean has always been the exclusive domain of a select group of brave pioneers – marine scientists, wreck divers,  treasure salvors – utilizing highly customized, state of the art submersibles that require boatloads of technicians to operate.

With the Deep Flight Super Falcon Hawkes Ocean Technologies in Richmond, California is trying to change all that. Read More →

Price: $20,000 – $100,000 (depending on options and instrumentation)

Sitting somewhere on the Aeronautical food chain between a Hang Glider and a Cessna, the Ultralight Trike is an exciting new class of aircraft which is set to bring the joy of flight to the masses – or at least the ones with $50,000 to spare.

Also known as Personal Air Vehicles (PAVs), Weight-Shift Ultralights, or just plain Trikes, these high-tech aircraft are safe and relatively easy to fly. They’re powered by a rear propeller and steered with a bar at the pilot’s fingertips. New materials and technologies have made these craft incredibly airworthy, fast (up to 110 mph) and maneuverable

Most Trikes have been tested for forces exceeding 6 G’s – that’s much higher than most conventional airplanes. And if the engine ever cuts out you can still glide safely down to earth.

Because of their incredible nimbleness Ultralight Trikes are being used for a new sport called Aerotrekking in which pilots skim over predetermined routes, sometimes just 10-20 feet off the ground. Read More →

Price: Unknown (not in production yet)

Amphibious vehicles have been around for decades, but they’ve always been sluggish on land, and even less nimble in the water. A truly maneuverable amphibious vehicle has only existed in engineers dreams – until now! The Humdinga amphibious 4×4 is like a real-life, full sized version of a GI Joe Action Vehicle – and it’s coming soon to a dealer near you (hopefully).

The Humdinga is designed specifically to access remote and hostile terrain. It can comfortably transport 5 people, complete with gear, to almost anywhere on the face of the earth. It’s full-time four-wheel drive and a 350-horsepower engine propels the Humdinga along at a respectable 100 mph on land, and the high-tech jet propulsion system sends it planing over water at 40 mph.

The Humdinga transforms from land to water mode at the touch of a button. The wheels retract, the power train switches from the wheels to the jet propulsion system and the vehicle converts to amphibious mode in under ten seconds.

But don’t break out your check books just yet. As of this writing, the Humdinga is still a prototype. Gibbs, the manufacturer of the Humdinga, said that it will turn the Humdinga into a production model in “due course, whatever that means. Read More →

Price: $60,000 to $90,000

With a name like this it’s gotta be good

This 4×4 van conversion is actually called “Ultimate Adventure Vehicle”. I’ve never seen it in person, but judging by the pictures and specs, it more than lives up to it’s name.

The Ultimate Adventure Vehicle project was designed to create a well-rounded vehicle capable of meeting a wide variety of transportation needs, from running everyday errands to serving as a rolling base camp for multi-week outdoor adventures.

This rugged four-wheel drive van includes all the amenities you’d expect to find in a much larger motorhome, and yet achieves unprecedented levels of around-town maneuverability, open-road fuel-economy, serious off-road capability, and back-country camping practicality no other vehicle can match. Read More →

Price: Way more than you can afford!

High Tech Treasure Hunter

The Odyssey Explorer is a 251-foot state-of-the-art, dynamically positioned ship owned and operated by Odyssey Marine Explorations. Odyssey calls it a “deep ocean archaeological platform” and while the company has done some first rate marine archeology, the real purpose of the Odyssey Explorer is to search for and recover sunken treasure; and so far she’s doing a pretty good job.

The Odyssey Explorer has been instrumental in recovering two of the largest sunken treasures ever brought up from the deep, worth over 600 million dollars combined!

Read about them here:

Lost Gold: The S.S. Republic

Odyssey purchased the Odyssey Explorer in August of 2003 and immediately began tricking the vessel out with the additional technology required to search for deep ocean wrecks. Today the ship is the most advanced deep ocean archaeological platform in the world.

Nearly 40 members of the crew, technical and scientific staff, live and work on the ship. Operations continue around the clock.

The Explorer is a technical marvel, but it can only operate on top of the water – unfortunately, all the booty is under the water, sometimes miles down… and that’s where ZEUS comes in… Read More →

Price: $287,500

The Spyker D12 is a totally new concept in auto design – so new in fact that the manufacturer had to invent a new acronym to describe it – SSUV – That’s Super Sports Utility Vehicle.

The D12 Peking-to-Paris has a split personality; off-road it has full time four-wheel drive and handles similar to the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S, but when it hits the pavement the D12 transform into a top-drawr sports car.

The 500-horsepower, 12-cylinder engine gives the D12 a zero-to-60 time of five seconds and a top speed of 186 mph – Speed Racer would feel right at home in this thing.

Though the D12 is an SUV, the car has a lot of design features from Spyker’s sports car, the C8, such as the “aeroblade” wheels and smooth rear view mirrors. Also notable – the back seat doors are hinged at the rear, creating so-called suicide doors. Read More →

Price: Around $400,000

Inspired by Bond

Of all the Bond films through-out the years, one of the coolest gadgets to emerge from Q-branch was the Lotus submarine-car from The Spy Who Loved Me, so It’s only fitting that when Swiss design company Rinspeed set out to build a real-life version of the underwater-car, they based it on the Lotus Elise.

It’s Called the sQuba and just like Bond’s legendary Lotus, the sQuba apears to be an ordingary sports car on land, but when it hits a body of water, a pair of twin screws power it along the surface then, with the flip of a switch, the sQuba sinks below the surface and becomes a high-tech submersible.

The designers have a ways to go before they reach the full “cool factor” of Bonds Esprit. The most noticeable difference between the Esprit and its real life counterpart is that the sQuba is a convertible, so occupants will be fully exposed to the elements; frigid water, man-eating sharks and spear gun toting henchmen just to name a few.

To breathe, you’ll have to wear a scuba mask connected to the car’s integrated compressed-air tank.

Rinspeed has a couple good reasons why it didn’t go with a closed cockpit. The first is safety. In an emergency, occupants might not be able to exit a closed cockpit vehicle underwater. Buoyancy is the second reason, as the vehicle would need two tons of extra weight to offset the volume of air inside a cockpit, which would seriously compromised the car’s on-road handling.

The sQuba’s not gonna set any speed records, on land its top speed is about 77 mph, but it slows down to 3 mph on the surface of the water, and 1.8 mph underwater. And with a maximum depth of 30 feet you won’t be taking a Sunday joy ride to the Titanic.

But really — who cares?! This thing goes underwater! Read More →

Price: $250,000 – Multi-Millions

King of the Dirt

The Baja 1000 is one of the toughest road races on the planet. To win it, you need a lot of guts, a gigantic bank account and a state-of-the-art vehicle.

The Baja 1000 Trophy Truck is the largest and fastest off-road racing vehicle on Earth. With engines that crank out over 700 hp they can reach speeds in excess of 135 miles per hour even over extremely nasty terrain.

With 26 inches of suspension travel in front and over 30 inches in the rear, these beasts can take most anything you can throw at them.

Any truck that meets safety standards can race the trophy truck class, so, theoretically, you could enter the race with the same truck you drove to work in, but with powerhouse corporate teams like Red Bull, Monster Energy and Volkswagen pouring millions into their trucks, you stand very little chance of winning in your stock Toyota Tacoma… Sorry! Read More →

Price: See below for individual models. And prepare to gasp!

EarthRoamer Xpedition Vehicles come in two styles. Both are designed to travel to four-wheel drive accessible, remote locations and provide a comfortable year-round camping experience without dependence on external power or utility hook ups. Basically, these things are self-contained, highly portable base-camps.

EarthRoamer XVs are the perfect vehicle for a four-month expedition through Central America, or just a week-long Sea Kayaking trip to Baja.

All the vehicles utilize solar energy as a primary power source for lights and appliances eliminating the need for a noisy generator.

The Earthroamer comes in two different styles to meet all your adventure expedition needs: Read More →

Price: $46,000 (approximate)

What would happen if a Quad Bike mated with a Jet Ski?…  You’d get the The Gibbs Technology Quadski, the first commercially viable, high-speed Quad Bike/ATV and  Jet Ski all in one.

The Quadski’s amphibian design offers a new class of recreational vehicle; powered by a 140-horsepower gasoline engine on land and a marine jet pump on water, the Quadski is capable of reaching speeds of 50 mph on land as well as sea.

Transformer

The transition from one medium to the other takes less than five seconds. On entering water, the wheels are retracted into the body of the vehicle with the flick of a switch.

Quadski’s fuel tank allows it to travel for up to two hours on water and has a land range of about 373 miles (600 km.)

While the Quadski may seem like the ultimate Rich Man’s water-toy, Gibbs Technologies says it was actually designed with a more utilitarian purpose in mind. It’s unique amphibian abilities make it ideal for search and rescue, military, emergency services and aid workers who will be able to reach areas and people no two or four wheel drive vehicle could reach.

The Quadski shares technology with the recently launched Aquada, an amphibian car that set a world record for crossing the English Channel, and the Humdinga, a five-seat, four-wheel-drive military-style vehicle that can travel up to 80 mph on land and 45 mph on water.

For you skeptics out there who think this sounds like – “just another one of those cool concept vehicles that never come to fruition” – check out the movie below. The Quadski goes into production sometime in early 2009. Read More →