As it turns out, it’s easier to sink an amphibious car than to dredge one up from the bottom of a lake.
It took about four hours yesterday for a dive team to rescue the car-boat that sank into Percy Priest Lake in just 20 seconds on Saturday.
The rare “Hobbycar” is owned by Nashville’s Lane Motor Museum. Once it was back on dry land, the museum’s education director, Rex Bennett, was relatively upbeat about its condition.
“It’s a lot better than I thought it was,” he says. “It’s a lot cleaner-looking than I thought it was. And most of the bits and pieces seem to be on it. That’s a cursory glance. The gauges are full of water, and of course the seats are kind of ruined right now. The internals and mechanicals, that’s the big question. And of course we want to find out what failed.”
Depending on what repairs are needed, the Hobbycar could end up on display again — and potentially back on local waterways.
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