Set sail in the Fiat 1100 Boat Car by Carrozzeria Coriasco : Why commute when you can cruise?

Why commute when you can cruise?

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Juri�n Minke/Wikimedia Commons

The 1953 Fiat 1100 Boat Car combines lots of nautical flair with a total lack of actual nautical capability.

By: Graham Kozak on 4/01/2014

There are a few ways to tackle the problem of wanting to have a boat and a car but only having the space (or budget) for one vehicle.

You could go the Amphicar route and end up with a so-so car that's also a so-so boat (bail-out buckets of charm though!). If budget permits, you could pick up a Quadski, but that doesn't give you the comfort of an enclosed cabin. There's the Boaterhome, which is sort of cheating -- it's really a big van with a deployable speedboat in the back.

The Fiat 1100 Boat Car by Carrozzeria Coriasco represents an entirely different approach. It's 100 percent car, but it looks like an aquatic vessel. And it's not exactly news, having been built decades ago on the bones of a humble 1953 Fiat 1100, but it's a revelation to us.

Marvel at its details: Bulbous blue fenders symbolize wake parted by the "bow" -- a playful design feature that gives the car a delightful "charging through the azure main" effect, like a Riva with a Ford Thunderbird greenhouse on top somehow managed to beach itself on a Delahaye.

The simulated wake, along with gleaming brightwork, portholes and a real wood deck, elevate this effort above some less-than-stable-looking boat-cars we've seen.

 
Italianways.com
The Fiat 1100 Boat Car has no air bags, but at least you'll be able to render aid if someone falls overboard.

But why?, you ask, your sense of childlike wonderment having apparently abandoned you long ago. It was constructed as a rolling advertisement for Bologna-based Scuola Nautica Scarani, which teaches aspiring Italian skippers the ways of the sea. Bologna is miles from the coast; this may explain why its boat is better suited to plying the autostrada than the Adriatic.

So while the Fiat boat car doesn't sail, it'd be perfect for yacht rockin' around a beach town. And in that respect, it's more like the Fiat Jolly or the Fiat Shellette Michelotti than it is the Amphicar -- there must be something about putting canvas canopies on the Italian automaker's products that make the modification impossible for carrozzerias to resist.

If you want to see the Fiat 1100 boat car in person, you'll have to head to the Netherlands to do so -- it's in the collection of the Louwman Museum, which is definitely worth a visit. Just be sure to ask permission to come aboard first.

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Inside, you're greeted with all the comforts of a mid-1950s Italian economy car.