Recently I was brought to the attention of the replay of the black and white youth series Kapitein Zeppos. Kapitein Zeppos is a Flemish youth series that originated in 1964. Zeppos first drove in an Austin Champ and in the 2nd and 3rd series in an Amphicar 770, with the result that such a car in Flemish sometimes still a " Zeppos ”is mentioned.
The music and the cars
The well-known intro to the series that still bounces between the ears is Living It Up by Bert Kaempfert. The TV series was mainly shot in the setting of the municipality of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Lombeek in Flemish Brabant, where it looks black and white. very convincing looks like 'a long time ago'. The Captain and his entourage had a thing for special cars. There is also a quite rare Ford Taunus P7A 20 M RS Coupé on display. The Ford Taunus P7a was only produced by Ford Cologne for one year (July 1967 - July 1968). During this period, about 60.000 P7as left the production line. It is not clear how many of these were RS coupes. But they are now quite rare. The Ford was equipped with the German Ford V6 engine of 2293 cc with an output of 108 DIN hp. That was impressive at the time.
But Captain Zeppos' deployment of the Amphicar was of course the most spectacular
And what was a rarity then, is now a highly valued collector's item. Although? There are still Amphicars that have to work for a living. Until recently they did good business with it in Disneyland. There were ten pieces there that were rented out - with a driver. A ride plus a bit of sailing (about fifteen minutes out and at home) cost $ 100 there.
The Amphicar in the pictures has also not retired
He was bought by a Frenchman who wanted to take boat trips in the port of Marseille with it. We attended the transaction as an interpreter. The Frenchman received extensive and emphatic information about the limitations of the concept and all the daily maintenance that such an Amphicar requires, especially if he has to do his daily work in salt water. In fact, the selling party advised against purchasing an Amphicar for this type of work. But the Frenchman had already dreamed richly and saw no problems. All he tried fanatically was to get the price down. The case was closed and the Amphicar went to France. In his enthusiasm, the Frenchman appeared to have forgotten to apply for the necessary permits from the port authorities. And then we were called in again to translate that "bought is bought". So much for the French battle.
In short: Amphicars do excellently in youth series
They are very fun game things, but certainly not boats. In that respect they are most similar to Mini Mokes, which are also fun but not very practical. And as far as we know, the Amphicar that was once bought from the Wheeler Dealers team in Terborg is back in Terborg. The Amphicar with which two Dutch people once crossed the Channel has also been found. But not yet for sale. Captain Zeppos's Amphicar is still missing.
The captain's adventures are also available in book form.
Serial
From March 2020, the series was again shown on One and available via VRT NOW. And think about the purchase of an Amphicar in amounts from 60.000 euros, for that money there may be a paddle.
We received this response by email. We would like to share it: Dear editor,
in your article on the Amphicar, you have no idea what would have happened to Captain Zeppos's original Amphicar. Well I think I know it would have been bought after the series by Mr Armand Coesens from Geraardsbergen, Belgium. He had stored it in an aircraft hangar of his private airport (EBGG). Unfortunately, when working on that shed, a fire started and the car was completely destroyed along with other exclusive old-timers, and certainly one aircraft. All this must have been about 40 years ago.
MVG
Paul De Clercq
Hahaha…. Then a dark 2CV was “blown up” and then you could see in a fraction of the very last second that a white one was being sacrificed. Well, analogue at that time.
Was a nice series that even my old man watched, nice memory.
America then had Bonanza, Rawhide etc.
We had Pipo, Zwiebertje and more of that innocence and my father drove his first 404.
Sweet memories!