Hill-and-Gully Riders

With its glamorless name and ungraceful looks, the Coot should be about as seductive to car buyers as two steel tubs hung between four large tires --which is just what it is. It is also the smartest thing on wheels to a growing corps of Coot fanciers. They drive it through mud, up mountains, across lakes and into woods, all the places conventional vehicles cannot roll. They use it to hunt, fish, mend fences, find stranded sheep and haul fertilizer. The vehicle is also put into service by federal forest rangers and by a dozen law enforcement agencies for search and rescue operations in rocky country.

Coot sales were 1,800 last year and are expected to double this year -- hardly enough to worry executives at Ford or Chevy. But the $1,595 Coot is the van guard of a new kind of car, the "off-the-road vehicle." At least 14 other U.S.

firms make similar vehicles at prices running around $1,400 for the Terra-Tiger, $1,500 for the Amphi-Cat, $1,695 for the Muscateer and $1 ,795 for the Pug.

Traction & Twist. The Coot was designed in 1964 by Carl Enos Jr., then an 18-year-old mechanic, as a utility vehicle for ranches. The car carries four passengers or 1,000 lbs. at 25 m.p.h.

over fairly smooth ground. Through rough spots it is slower, but neither mud, sand nor grades as steep as 75% will stop it. In water, it cruises at 1 1/2 m.p.h., propelled by its rotating wheels, or 5 m.p.h. with an optional prop. The open tubs, which form the 7-ft. 6-in.

body, keep it afloat like a boat. They are connected by a jointed shaft that per mits the Coot to flex with the terrain.

With fourwheel drive and steering, there is always enough traction and twist to prevent tipping, come hill or gully. For the driver, this may make the ride ex citing but hardly different from his car:

there are a standard clutch, a brake and an accelerator, a steering wheel and a two-speed forward, neutral and re verse gearshift. Power is supplied by a 12-h.p. lawn-mower engine that runs two hours on a gallon of gas.

Two months ago, Founder Enos and his partner, Robert Mauser, sold Coot, Inc. for just over $1,000,000 to Randtron, a new manufacturing conglomerate headquartered near San Francisco; Mauser and Enos stay on as president and vice president of the subsidiary. With 254 dealers throughout the U.S., and volume projected at $5,500,000, the company should show its first profit this year. "Off-the-road vehicles," says Mauser, "serve the purpose for which people used to keep horses: to be able to go off alone where automobiles cannot go. But you can keep the Coot in the garage--and you don't have to feed it any hay." Besides, what horse ever came equipped with optional surrey top and roll bar?

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