Only In America: The Amazing Boaterhome

Where else would someone take a brain fart and actually build it? Yes, combine a boat and a hyper long stretched van, and turn into the Boaterhome! Fame and fortune are just a prototype away. Actually, twenty-one were built. And now JDK Enterprises wants to revive the plan, and build an even bigger and better Boaterhome. Some brilliant ideas just won’t go away, despite the many intrinsic challenges. Here’s one: Guess which axle drives this behemoth?

I was suspicious the minute I laid eyes on it, because of that obvious four-wheel drive front axle conversion on the Econoline van. And then there’s the issue of the boat’s hull, which is right where the rear axles’ centers would be. Solution: just disable the rear output of the transfer box, and send the 460’s torque all to the front axle. Can you imagine this thing pulling up a boat ramp with several tons of 28′ cabin cruiser on the back? Or even when its empty? Maybe all 21 Boaterhomes disconnected once, never to be reunited again.

This is the only shot I could find of the two disengaging. Well, it has to be disengaging, because there’s no way that front axle would pull both out of this spot.

Here’s a more detailed look at the Boaterhome. Straight out of a James Bond movie. Since the boat alone is 28′ long, I’d say the whole rig is some 40′ overall. The boat displaces 6,260 lbs; does that mean that’s how much it weighs, marine buffs?

As I alluded to earlier, the idea didn’t die with the first Boaterhome to get stuck at a boat ramp. This concept is titled Boaterhome 2000, so its probably safe to assume that its a product of the expansive and easy-money late 1990’s.

But if you don’t want to wait for another possible Boaterhome revival Hemming’s has one advertised for sale: $29,500. What are you waiting for?