Our conversations with Michael Sean Sullivan, who believes he may have found the remains of the 1926 Buick engine that motivated Paul Satko’s Ark across the country and up to Alaska, revealed something entirely unexpected: Paul Satko’s Amphibian, another homebuilt vehicle from the aspiring homesteader.
According to Sullivan, however, the Amphibian was built in the mid-1930s, prior to Satko losing his job as a mechanic and welder in Richmond, Virginia. Recall that Satko had once served in the Marines and sailed to distant ports; evidently, those experiences influenced him more than we’d previously suspected. Whether Miami-based inventor Paul Pankotan took inspiration for his circa 1940 amphibious car from Satko, we may never know.
Sullivan didn’t provide us with any more information about the Amphibian than what we see here, so we don’t know what powered it or how well it fared in the water. The wheels and steering wheel look like they may have come from a mid-1920s Buick – Satko’s donor car of choice for his Ark and his tractor – but the grille shell and headlamps do not.
As for the location of Satko’s shop, shown here in another photo of the Amphibian, we tried in vain to pin it down. Any Richmond residents care to weigh in on the location?