Mercier-Jones is a Chicago-based company specializing in the creation of luxurious hovercrafts, vehicles that can travel just as well over land and over sea, hovering on a cushion of air. The designers and engineers there are aiming high, their goal being to create the Bugatti Veyron of air-cushion vehicles – and they’re certainly come as close as can be with their new Supercraft.
This high-tech hovercraft boasts a chromium-alloy tube chassis and composite hull, giving it a dry weight of only 700 lbs – something very important when you’re basically gliding on air. Its power train consists of a 60-horsepower twin-rotor engine, a pair of electric motors, and a lithium-ion battery pack.
In terms of performance, it does really well compared to any other similar vehicle. In fact, with a top speed of 80 mph, it blows the current hovercraft speed record of 56.25 mph out of the water, so at least in this respect it truly is similar to the record-breaking Veyron. At 40 mph, it has a range of 120 miles, with a hover height of seven inches off the ground.
The Mercier-Jones Supercraft will be available starting this May, with the initial set of 10 Collector’s Edition models to be delivered, followed by another 50 specimens by October. The base price for one of them will be $75,000.
[Motor Authority]
