Sea-converted Maserati seized in Italy

FORTE DEI MARMI, Italy, July 21 (UPI) -- A pair of Italian men who said they were planning to sail around the country in a converted Maserati automobile said the coast guard confiscated the vehicle.

Marco Amoretti and Marcolino De Candia said the Italian coast guard intercepted them traveling in the converted automobile off the coast of Forte dei Marmi, Italy, and seized the pink Maserati for not being seaworthy, ANSA reported Tuesday.

Coast guard officials said the Maserati, which had been equipped with an outboard motor and buoyant polyurethane, lacked the required documents attesting to seaworthiness as well as several required safety features.

''Considering the weather conditions, the fact that it was nearly dusk and the slow speed of the craft (two knots), the car-boat was escorted to to land, confiscated and fined,'' the coast guard said.

The men said the incident was not their first sea voyage in a converted automobile. In 1999, Amoretti and De Candia traveled across the Atlantic Ocean from the Canary Islands to the island of Martinique in a boat made from a Ford Taurus and a Volkswagen Passat.