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Floating Motors La Dolce Is Just Like the Fiat 500, Only for the Sea

For as long as vehicles have been in our lives, humans have been trying to mix them up in unlikely ways. Over the years, we’ve had attempts to make boat airplanes or flying cars, and some of them have been relatively successful. None however managed to give birth to a new, widespread segment of vehicular transport.
Floating Motors La Dolce 7 photos
Photo: Floating Motors
One of the latest companies to try and blend two worlds is Floating Motors, a startup born from the minds of people usually in the business of coming up with crazy ideas, Lazzarini Design. These guys are not necessarily trying to mix the advantages of solid-ground driving with the pleasure of navigating the sea, but they’re coming close: they’re trying to take the design of cars we know and love, and transplant them on motorboats.

Not long ago, we gave you an overview of Floating Motors, revealing everything they have to offer at such an early stage in their life. As of this Sunday, we’ll try and give you a more in-depth look at each of the contraptions the group already has on the table.

And we’ll start with the La Dolce, a Fiat 500-inspired boat that can fit four, taking them on trips around the shorelines in one of the cuddliest waterborne machines you’ve ever seen.

La Dolce is properly styled to look like the Italian mini car from the carmaker’s golden years, not the one we’re getting now. It has the two iconic, round headlights up front, a proper windscreen, and a chrome bumper, even if it’ll probably never need one. The project has no roof, as boats of this type don’t generally need them, and no doors.

Even if the front end and the overall shape of the La Dolce screams Fiat 500, the rear end is an entirely different story. Instead of ending just like the road-going vehicle does, the boat has at the back a Mercury MerCruiser outboard motor.

It’s not a particularly potent one, but it gets the job done. We’re talking about a unit that is 995cc in displacement, can spin at a maximum of 6,000 rpm, and develops just 70 hp which, coincidence or not, is about the same as an actual Fiat 500. The speed the thing can achieve though is considerably smaller, about 35 knots (40 mph/64 kph).

Now, that’s just the standard configuration, and Floating Motors will charge people just $30,000 for it, about as much as the car it is inspired from. But there is another version that is close to double that much.

We’re talking about a La Dolce equipped with an electric outboard motor of Torqeedo make. This one is significantly less potent, spitting out just 20 hp and propelling the boat to a top speed of 25 knots (29 mph/47 kph). We’re not being provided any info on the range for the thing, but we do know that being electric it justifies a higher price. In this case, that price would be $50,000.

Overall, La Dolce comes as a contraption that is 3.5 meters (12 feet) long and 1.6 meters (6 feet) wide. It has a dry weight of 550 kg (1,200 lbs), and can seat four passengers, two on individual seats up front and another two on a bench at the back.

At the time of writing, Floating Motors is taking reservations for the La Dolce, and estimates a delivery time of about eight months for either version of it. There is a $5,000 advance payment required to get things going.

No info is available yet on how many people have expressed their interest in this model and the others the company is making.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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