Sunken Amphibious Car Is Retrieved From Lake Bottom

We’re big fans of the Lane Motor Museum. We’ve visted a few times and always had fun with their unique and intriguing vehicles. Unfortunately, over the weekend, the Lane Museum’s incredibly rare amphibious vehicle, the Hobbycar, sank to the bottom of Percy Priest Lake outside Nashville, Tennessee. Nobody was hurt, but the Hobbycar seemed lost.

Turns out, it’s not! The Lane staff mobilized their forces and were able to pull the Hobbycar back out. The recovery effort was done entirely by the Lane staff with some assistance from professionals who helped to locate the car with sonar equipment.

Incredibly, it only took about an hour to find the Hobbycar since they knew the general area. Sonar helped but the real work was done by three professional divers. After finding it, they used a combination of inflatables and buoyant barrels to carefully raise the Hobbycar. One of Lane’s mechanics used a snorkel to dive under the car to attach tow straps and bring it up to the surface. Surprisingly enough, the Hobbycar is remarkably intact. The only part missing seems to be the rear-view mirror. Get this, even owner Jeff Lane’s cell phone that was on Hobbycar’s floorboard still worked!

Lane said the goal is to get the Hobbycar running again, on land and water…we hope it works out!