This is a 1990 RMA Amphi-Ranger 2800 SR, it’s a very rare though highly-capable amphibious four-wheel drive built in Germany from the mid-80s to the mid-90s.
Only around 70 examples of the Amphi-Ranger were made, not a whole lot given the 10 year production run, but the purchase price was remarkably high – the equivalent of over $330,000 USD today. It’s now known how many have survived, but this is only the second one we’ve seen come up for sale in the last decade.
Fast Facts: The RMA Amphi-Ranger
- The RMA Amphi-Ranger 2800 SR was developed in Germany in the 1980s as an amphibious 4×4 for inspecting pipelines across rivers, marshes, and other challenging terrain. Series production ran from 1985 to 1995, with only around 70 built, largely because the vehicle was extraordinarily expensive.
- Its seawater-resistant aluminum hull used 3 to 4 mm sheet welded into a sealed structure, with most mechanical parts protected inside. Independent suspension, locking front and rear differentials, four-wheel disc brakes, power steering, and roughly 10 inches of ground clearance gave it solid off-road ability – rather than making it merely a road-going amphibian.
- Later examples used Ford’s fuel-injected 2.9 liter Cologne V6 producing 143 bhp, coupled to a 4 or 5-speed manual transmission and RMA’s own dual-range transfer case. In water, an electrically deployed Z-drive propeller provided propulsion, while the front wheels handled steering. RMA claimed roughly 15 km/h on water.
- The 1990 example shown here has covered just 16,000 kilometers and is believed to be the only 1990 Amphi-Ranger currently in the United States. It keeps its original tires, green aluminum-alloy body, 5-speed manual gearbox, locking differentials, alloy wheels, and Ford 2.9 liter V6, and it’s scheduled for a Mecum auction in September.
History Speedrun: The RMA Amphi-Ranger
Rheinauer Maschinen und Armaturenbau made a name for itself as a specialist manufacturer of valves for gas, oil, and water pipelines. They were just about the last company you might expect to develop a fully-amphibious four-wheel drive, that’s just what they did.
This is a 1990 RMA Amphi-Ranger 2800 SR, it’s a very rare though highly capable amphibious four-wheel drive built in Germany from the mid-80s to the mid-90s.
In 1982 the firm started work on a new project that would soon become their most famous creation – a four-wheel drive vehicle that could be driven down a boat ramp into the water, and not sink. The reasoning was surprisingly practical, just as you might expect for a German business.
RMA’s managing director, Gerhard Faulhaber, wanted a way to inspect the pipelines his company’s valves went into, but pipelines cross marshland, rivers, swamps, and remote rivers in places where there are no bridges.
Series production of the Amphi-Ranger 2800 SR ran from 1985 to 1995, and only about 70 were built in total. German magazine Auto Bild counted 35 in December of 1986, and they reported a year later that roughly one a month was being built, with the next three already sold.
The Hull Of The Amphi-Ranger 2800 SR
The “SR” in the model name stood for “seewasserresistent,” which even if you don’t read German still sounds like what it means – seawater resistant. It was built from 3mm thick aluminum sheet, up to 4mm in places, which was all welded to an aluminum ladder frame to form a single sealed tub with a roll bar up top.
Everything except the suspension, brakes, and exhaust sat inside the hull, with no differentials hanging below the floor – ground clearance was respectable at 10 inches. There is a boat-style bumper line that runs right around the body roughly halfway up at the waterline, and the doors stop at it to avoid water ingress, which makes climbing in awkward for those who aren’t as flexible as they once were.
The engine and main radiator were shut inside the hull with no natural airflow at all, so cooling depended on a large fan pulling air through vents in the top half of the B-pillars. A second radiator sat behind a grille in the nose, outside the engine compartment, where it picked up airflow on the road and cold water off the bow when on the water.
Only around 70 examples of the Amphi-Ranger were made, not a whole lot given the 10 year production run, but the purchase price was remarkably high – the equivalent of over $330,000 USD today. It’s now known how many have survived, but this is only the second one we’ve seen come up for sale in the last decade.
Two stainless steel exhaust manifolds, one per bank, each turned through a U-bend at the top before passing through a flexible coupling in the engine bay seal and out beneath the floor.
The Drivetrain Specifications
The Amphi-Ranger was powered by Ford’s damn-near-bulletproof Cologne V6. Until 1986 it was the carbureted 2.8 liter version, rated at 133 bhp at 5,200 rpm, with 159 lb ft at 3,000 rpm. From 1986 onwards RMA fitted the fuel-injected 2.9 liter with 143 bhp, and a 4.0 liter with an automatic transmission also appeared on the options list.
A 4 or 5-speed manual gearbox sent power back to a dual-range transfer case. As is common with 4x4s, the transfer case allowed you to drive either the rear wheels only for better fuel economy, or all four for better traction when off-road.
The gearbox and instrument panel were all sourced from Ford, the locking front and rear differentials came from Fiat, and RMA engineered the transfer case in-house, quite the achievement. All four wheels sat on double wishbones with mini-block coil springs, the front and rear axles were identical, the rack-and-pinion steering was power-assisted, and there were discs at all four corners, plus a parking brake acting on a disc on the driveshaft.
In the water, a propeller on a Z-drive leg swung down electrically from beneath the tail. CAR magazine’s 1990 test explained how it all worked – the driver needed to declutch, push the central lever to “wheels free,” lower the propeller, wait for the yellow light confirming engagement, select second gear and let the clutch out.
Steering was by the front wheels, exactly as on land, with a folding rear rudder available as an optional extra. RMA quoted 15 km/h, or 9 mph, on the water, and a fuel burn of up to 24 liters an hour.
There are exceedingly rare vehicles, even more so in the United States, and researching them requires either serious German language proficiency, or extensive use of Google Translate (we made use of that latter option).
On The Road (And The Thames)
Auto Motor und Sport tested a 2800 SR for its January 1986 issue and recorded 88 mph flat out, 0 to 62 mph in 18.7 seconds, and 18.8 L/100 km, that’s roughly 12.5 mpg. The vehicle weighed 4,189 lbs, measured 15 ft 5 in long, and had a 95,000 DM sticker price.
Later that year Auto Bild took a 2900 SR model to sea off the coast of Greece, running about three nautical miles out from Piraeus toward the Bay of Salamis with a Greek fishing boat alongside in case it all went pear-shaped. The tester noted that his speed was around 10 knots and said (much to the skipper’s irritation) that the escort vessel couldn’t keep up. He had driven plenty of amphibians, he wrote, and he’d never felt safer in one.
British sales all went through David Saunders, who had hoped to sell 30 a year, half to police, military, and oil company buyers and half to wealthy private owners. CAR joined him for a run on the Thames in 1990, from Putney Embankment, it must have been quite an unusual sight for Londoners on their way to work that morning.
Afloat, the magazine found the Amphi-Ranger to be slow and noisy, nearly stopping during gear changes because of drag, with the engine noise becoming intrusive between 3,000 and 4,000 rpm. A piece of driftwood broke the propeller shaft as they went back into the river, Saunders engaged four-wheel drive and the tires clawed the car back up the Battersea river bank.
They drove back to Putney by road in about a third of the time the river route had taken. The price as tested was £96,286, this was a staggeringly high sum (even more so then than now), and works out to about £245,355 today, or $331,937 USD.
A Handful Of Buyers, And The End
RMA’s customers were mostly pipeline operators around the world, plus a handful of water-borne police forces and reservoir authorities. Private sales were rare. Hessen’s Wasserschutzpolizei (river police that patrol the waterways and harbors in Germany) ran two from 1987 to 2000 on the Edersee and the Diemelsee, patrolling shorelines, checking anglers, and keeping an eye on shipping.
This is believed to be the only 1990 model currently in the United States, it shows just 16,000 kilometers on the odometer since new, and it still has its original tires – which will obviously need to be changed before any serious driving is undertaken.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the cost was the key obstacle blocking wider adoption – RMA quoted a prospective American $200,000 USD in 1993. Production stopped two years later.
Amphibious vehicle historian René Pohl notes that an Amphi-Ranger rode out a Force 10 storm off the North Sea coast. One also turns up in the second season of Baywatch (still wearing its German plates). A 1986 car came up for private sale in Germany in 2024, described by its seller as fully renovated with a little work still to do. The asking price was an eye-watering €180,000 ($208,000 USD).
The 1990 RMA Amphi-Ranger 2800 SR Shown Here
This is a 1990 RMA Amphi-Ranger 2800 SR, it’s an unusually rare amphibious 4×4, and it’s one of roughly 70 examples that were ever made. It’s also believed to be the only 1990 model currently in the United States, it shows just 16,000 kilometers on the odometer since new, and it still has its original tires – which will obviously need to be changed before any serious driving is undertaken.
Power is provided by a Ford 2.9 liter V6 paired with a 5-speed manual transmission. On land it drives through a four-wheel-drive system with locking differentials, while water propulsion is provided by an integrated rear propeller as noted above.
Power is provided by a Ford 2.9 liter V6 paired with a 5-speed manual transmission. On land it drives through a four-wheel-drive system with locking differentials, while water propulsion is provided by an integrated rear propeller as noted above.
The Amphi-Ranger is built around a galvanized steel chassis with an aluminum-alloy hull, finished here in green. Other equipment includes power steering, disc brakes, and mesh-style aluminum alloy wheels. There are exceedingly rare vehicles, even more so in the United States, and researching them requires either serious German language proficiency, or extensive use of Google Translate (we made use of that latter option).
This Amphi-Ranger is now due to roll across the block with Mecum in September, if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Mecum
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
