The invention of the 5-ton amphibious vehicle was born 70 years ago

The Rhino car features a pair of giant front wheels with a diameter of 2m, helping it to run 72km / h on land and 8km / h in water.

The Rhino is a strange four-wheeled amphibious vehicle designed by Greek-American inventor Elie Aghnides in the last century. In the 1940s, while watching a tractor pass through New York City's Central Park, he realized it was possible to combine the ruggedness of a bulldozer with the speed of a car to build an all-terrain vehicle. effective figure.

A few years later, Aghnides came up with the idea of ​​​​designing a giant vehicle called the Rhino. The feature of this vehicle is the large front wheel with a diameter of nearly 2m, each weighing 680kg. In hard terrain, only the zigzag rubber band around the wheel touches the ground. With soft soil, the part of the wheel touching down will be more.

Under water, the hollow wheels help Rhino float while the jet engine propels the vehicle forward.

Rhino can move easily through sand, mud and water. On the road, the car can reach a speed of 72 km / h, but in the water, its top speed is less than 8 km / h.

Rhino weighs 5 tons and is 5.8m long, 2.7m wide and 3m high. Body made of aluminum with steel frame.

The first prototype was produced by the Marmon-Harrington company in Indianapolis (USA) in 1954. Thanks to its low center of gravity, the car can tilt about 75 degrees to the sides without tipping over.

Aghnides demonstrated this invention to the army. However, the military decided not to buy it because of concerns that the inflatable wheel could be punctured by bullets.