Thursday, June 28, 2007

SHAMU BUG!!

Today as I was leaving for work, I pulled out of my apartment complex to go north on Kyrene Road when right in front of me, traveling south on the same road, the Shamu Cruiser passed by!! Now that's something you don't see every day in Phoenix. Sea World must be doing some sort of an outreach or tour program again. Although I was very temped to follow it, I decided against it because I was already running late for work. Plus I may have ended up in San Diego. Oh well, it was still awesome.


Here is the Shamu Cruiser and the story behind it..

Shamu Cruisers were created by St. Louis-based Craftsman Industries. Designed from the 2001 VW Beetle, there is a pod of six that travel around the country as part of Sea World's outreach and promotional tours.

Fiberglass molders, machine and body shop experts, painters, airbrush artists, graphic artists, decal applicators and mechanics all work together to make each Shamu Cruiser. Each fiberglass fluke weighs 45 pounds and the dorsal fin weighs 9 pounds. Solid aluminum rods connect them to the body of the car and the hatchback and doors remain fully functional. Despite the added weight, the shape of the tail fluke makes for minimal drag with no noticable effect on vehicle performance, so the Shamu Cruiser gets a respectable 25 MPG.

3 comments:

Ty's Dad said...

Hi. My son and I saw this car in Orlando recently near Sea World. I loved your pic and linked to it from our blog. Thanks!

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