KHQ Right Now - News and Weather for Spokane and North Idaho | Car-Boat hybrid sails through Spokane streets

Car-Boat hybrid sails through Spokane streets

(More photos: For more pictures of Lorentz's car/boat scroll down
to a slideshow below the comments section of this story)

SPOKANE, Wash. – When a light rain started to fall on Spokane, most drivers turned on their windshield wipers and cursed the wet weather setting-in over the city, but not Tim Lorentz.

"Boats love the water," he said with a smile as he jumped into an open window of his hybrid car-boat in North Spokane.

Lorentz sliced the bottom off the hull of a fiberglass boat and secured it to the top of a 1994 Chrysler Le Baron.

While the boat was cut apart, Lorentz's sense of humor is firmly intact.  The hybrid car is not sealed on the bottom, so Lorentz says it can't go in the water.

"People want to know if it will float," he said.  "I tell them, ‘Yeah, it'll float, for a second.'"

Lorentz spent $800 dollars on his convertible car and boat plus several hundred more to license, register and insure the one-of-a kind ride in Spokane.  He says it is worth every penny as he sees the faces of those on the side of the street he passes each day.

"People will thumbs up, clap, wave or smile," he said, "and people who don't notice the boat shouldn't be driving - they're not aware of their surroundings."

While Lorentz isn't sure why he created the hybrid vehicle, saying it just came to him one night, he is sure he will continue to develop new projects. He recently purchased a 1987 stretch limousine and is brainstorming ideas for the formal ride.

"I just have always been an idea person," he said. "I think I'm a little bit off kilter."