This is a Fat Truck from Canadian company Zeal Motor, each is four-wheel-drive and can operate as a boat on water, or as a highly-capable ATV on land.
Interestingly, Zeal notes that only the wheels come from outside North America. 60% of the parts come from the USA, including the turbodiesel engine, and the rest of the parts come from within 300 miles of the Canadian factory.
Fast Facts: A 2023 Zeal Motor Fat Truck 2.8C
- Canadian company Zeal Motor unveiled the Fat Truck in Quebec in early-2019 as an amphibious industrial vehicle built for terrain conventional 4x4s simply can’t reach. Developed by three founders with extensive industrial machinery experience, it combined large low-pressure tires, a watertight hull, and joystick-operated skid steering for remote worksites and rescue operations.
- Production Fat Trucks use a 2.2 liter Caterpillar four-cylinder turbodiesel producing 67 bhp and 153 lb ft of torque. A hydrostatic transmission powers all four wheels through belt drives, while automatic tire inflation adjusts pressure for snow, mud, trails, or water. The tires provide flotation, propulsion, and suspension.
- The Fat Truck can reach 25 mph on land and 3.1 mph on water, climb steep grades, and carry up to eight occupants or 2,200 lbs. Zeal has also expanded into military applications, testing vehicles in the Canadian Arctic and winning a five-year standing offer from Canada’s Department of National Defence.
- This particular 2023 Fat Truck 2.8C was acquired by its current seller in 2024 and shows just 154 operating hours. Finished in white with a black external roll cage, it has upgraded air conditioning, lithium batteries, a cellular signal booster, LED lighting, and a rearview camera. It’s offered in Texas with a bill of sale.
History Speedrun: The Zeal Motor Fat Truck
Zeal Motor unveiled the new Fat Truck amphibious vehicle in Bromont, Quebec, in January of 2019, with a 40 bhp three-cylinder diesel in its hull. Zeal quickly decided to replace that original 1.7 liter Caterpillar unit with a more powerful 2.2 liter Caterpillar four-cylinder turbodiesel capable of a healthier 67 bhp and 153 lb ft of torque.
Above Video: This clip from Caterpillar shows the Zeal Motor Fat Truck being put through its paces, on land and on the water.
In short, the Fat Truck is an amphibious crew and cargo carrier for work sites that a conventional 4×4 can’t reach. Common use cases include power line and pipeline work, telecom tower maintenance, wind farm upkeep, and search-and-rescue operations in remote backcountry. Unusually, it has no steering wheel and no pedals, instead it changes direction using a tank-like skid-steering system.
An Industrial Vehicle That Can Go Anywhere
Zeal’s three founders were Maxim O’Shaughnessy, Benoit Marleau, and Amine Khimjee. They each come from a background in industrial vehicles, with 60 years of combined experience that included time at the crawler carrier manufacturer Prinoth.
While looking for a product for clients with extreme off-road transport needs, they tested the Ukrainian-built Sherp, a big-wheeled amphibious ATV. O’Shaughnessy’s idea was to combine those oversize wheels with the core features of an industrial machine. The partners found the Sherp effective, but they also found it difficult to drive, and its cabin could quickly fill with fumes.
Development began in May of 2018, Zeal had set up its headquarters in part of the former Hyundai plant in Bromont, and 2,000 hours of engineering work had already been done under Marleau, the vice president of engineering. Industrial designer Martin Aubé developed the body – a tall box with no overhangs to speak of, roughly as wide as it is high, with large tinted windows on all four sides.
The Hull, Tires + Hydrostatic Drive
The body is a watertight hull, the lower half is made from Hardox, a hardened wear-resistant steel plate, and the upper structure is aluminum to helps keep the weight down and ensure the center of gravity remains as low as possible. For this same reason, the engine sits low in the center of the hull, and the cab has ISO 3471 rollover-protection certification.
This is a Fat Truck from Canadian company Zeal Motor, each is four-wheel-drive and can operate as a boat on water or as a highly-capable ATV on land.
In production form the Caterpillar C2.2 four-pot made 67 bhp at 2,800 rpm and 153 lb ft of torque from 1,400 rpm, and it met Tier 4 Final emissions rules even without a diesel particulate filter. This engine drives a hydrostatic transmission, in which an engine-driven pump powers hydraulic motors instead of gears and shafts. In the 2.8C, one hydraulic motor on each side drives that side’s two wheels, with carbon-fiber synchronous belts as the final drive.
All the driving is done with one joystick on the center console, so either front occupant can drive. Push it forward to go, tip it left or right to turn, and ease it back to slow down. It’s probably the easiest vehicle control system in existence.
The truck steers by changing the speed of the wheels on one side relative to the other, and it can pivot in its own length 360º. The hydrostatic transmission does the braking, and disc brakes apply automatically whenever the truck stops and release when it moves off.
The vehicle has no conventional suspension, the tires run at very low pressure and mold themselves around obstacles rather than bouncing over them, the tire sidewalls also absorb bumps as they roll.
Each tire measures 1,640 by 640 millimeters on a 24 inch rim, around 65 inches tall and 25 inches wide, and the pressure never goes above 4 psi. The driver picks one of four modes on a small screen (snow, mud, trail, or water), and the system adjusts the pressures automatically to suit. Snow gets the lowest pressure for the largest contact patch, water gets the highest, for flotation, and the tires’ transverse paddle tread helps to push the truck through the water – almost like a paddle steamer.
The factory figures for the 2.8 models list a top speed of 25 mph on land and 3.1 mph on water. The trucks are rated for 70% grades up and down and 40% side slopes, with a payload of 2,200 lbs or eight occupants.
The company says that about 60% of the parts came from the United States and the rest from within 300 miles of the factory. Only the wheels come from outside North America.
Each tire measures 1,640 by 640 millimeters on a 24 inch rim, around 65 inches tall and 25 inches wide, and the pressure never goes above 4 psi. The driver picks one of four modes on a small screen (snow, mud, trail, or water), and the system adjusts the pressures automatically to suit.
Into The Defense Sector
Zeal’s work with the Canadian Armed Forces began in 2021 through Innovative Solutions Canada, a federal program that helps small companies develop and validate prototypes.
In 2023 two Fat Trucks spent several months under evaluation in the Canadian Arctic with no spare parts or servicing. Both came back still working. Zeal launched a Fat Truck Defense division at the CANSEC trade show in Ottawa in 2024, and its workforce has grown from 30 to around 60 since.
On October the 15th, 2026, Zeal announced that it had completed a Cowansville plant expansion that doubles its production capacity. The same announcement covered a 5-year standing offer under which the Canadian Department of National Defence can order Arctic Mobility Amphibious Vehicles from the company.
The 2023 Zeal Motor Fat Truck Shown Here
This is a 2023 Zeal Motor Fat Truck 2.8C, it was bought by the seller in 2024 and then fitted with a number of upgrades. It’s finished in white with an external black tubular roll cage, it has an aluminum body, a two-seat cabin, and a joystick control system that allows the vehicle to be operated from either seat. The digital hour meter currently shows just 154 hours of operation.
Power is provided by a Caterpillar 2.2 liter four-cylinder turbodiesel, driving all four wheels through the hydrostatic transmission and belt-drive system used on all Zeal trucks. It rides on 1640×640 low-pressure paddle tires mounted on 24 inch wheels, which provide flotation and propulsion in water.
It has 20.7 inches of ground clearance, can negotiate gradients of up to 35º, and has a maximum land speed of 25 mph (40 km/h). A central tire inflation system automatically maintains the selected tire pressure, while braking is handled through the hydrostatic drivetrain and an automatically applied safety disc brake.
Since buying the vehicle, the seller has installed an OutEquip 12,500 BTU 12 volt mini-split air conditioning system, supported by two NewtiPower 600Ah lithium batteries. Other additions include a weBoost cellular signal booster, an Auxbeam digital accessory control panel, a Sirocco cabin fan, and an external charging port.
Interestingly, Zeal notes that only the wheels come from outside North America. 60% of the parts come from the USA, including the turbodiesel engine, and the rest of the parts come from within 300 miles of the Canadian factory.
It also has LED lighting, a rearview camera, a rooftop escape hatch, a folding entry ladder, and front and rear receiver hitches. The cabin has black vinyl seats, shoulder belts, and a central digital display.
This Fat Truck is now being offered for sale out of Texas with a bill of sale, and you can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid.
Images courtesy of Bring a Trailer
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.
