I have featured DeLorean cars before, but a DeLorean hovercraft for sale on eBay is definitely a first.
A first and only in fact. As you might have guessed, this certainly was not a production model back in the 1980s. The DeLorean hovercraft is a fan-made, one-off vehicle.
That fan is Matthew Riese, who used Kickstarter to finance this take on the cult classic car. He started with a handmade prototype, then over time improved on the design.
The finalised version is based on the blueprints of the Universal Hovercraft UH-13PT. The basic shape of the hull, skirt, and fan ducts come from those blueprints, with everything else customised to recreate the look of a DeLorean, albeit one on water.
The Delorean body is made out of styrofoam wrapped in fibreglass and painted with metallic paint. The 36” thrust fan is powered by a 23hp Briggs & Stratton Vanguard riding lawnmower-style engine. The 24” lift fan is powered by a B&S 875 Professional series push mower engine.
The hull of the craft hovers about 6-8 inches over the surface, and apparently can hover over anything relatively flat. So land, water, ice, snow, sand, asphalt and so on. The top speed with the current thrust configuration is 31mph on the water in favourable conditions. Oh, it also has opening gullwing doors, of course.
Plenty of upgrades in the last few months, including a new and stronger skirt, new thrust engine, a strengthened deck, LED lights in the tyres, under the hull, and in cockpit, all new wiring with waterproof switches and connectors and much, much more. See the listing for all the work undertaken.
All of which is well and good. But ultimately, you need to ask yourself two questions. Do you have room in your life and your garage for a DeLorean hovercraft and secondly, do you have the cash to spare in your bank account.
Yes, this is a niche ask to take on. Not quite an eccentric millionaire, but not far off. You will need something in the region of $45,000 to get this on a ‘Buy It Now’ or you can make an offer that appeals to the seller.
As this has been a labour of love for so long, I suspect you will need to nudge near to that asking price if you do want to live out your Back To The Future fantasy on water. Talking of which, 10 per cent of the sale proceeds will go to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
