When consulted, Ferdinand Porsche saw an opportunity to create an amphibious version of the Volkswagen Kübelwagen (Typ 82) with all-wheel drive, simpler to produce and with better performance than the Trippel SG 6, the amphibious model already in service with the German army.
Thus was born the Typ 128, a vehicle with a boat-shaped body, torsion bar suspension and four-wheel drive, which in 1941 was produced in 30 units by the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg and delivered to the army for evaluation.
In August 1941, the first prototype was taken to Hitler’s headquarters for a demonstration. The Führer appeared pleased, inspecting the vehicle carefully and asking several questions. One of them concerned the possibility of fitting a mosquito net to the vehicle, due to conditions on the Eastern Front.
History has it that at precisely that moment, one of the generals standing beside Hitler was bitten on the face by a mosquito. With lightning reflexes, the Nazi leader swiftly raised his hand and crushed the insect with a slap. Blood from the insect immediately began to run down the general’s face. To everyone’s astonishment, the Führer smiled and said: “Here we have the first German general to shed blood in this war!”
Having made a very favourable impression on the authorities, Ferdinand Porsche received approval and funding to develop the new amphibious vehicle, which first took shape as the Typ 138, of which 100 units were produced, and later as the definitive Schwimmwagen, a smaller and more agile vehicle designated Typ 166. The first 125 vehicles of this series were hand-built by Porsche in Stuttgart and became known as Vorserienschwimmwagen (pre-series amphibious vehicles). The body resembled a sort of bathtub made from thin pressed steel sheets with structural ribs essential to ensure rigidity. The whole assembly was very light, allowing two or three soldiers to lift a Typ 166 by hand, making it possible, if necessary, to change a wheel without using a jack.
Series production began in the autumn of 1942, with the first units delivered to Waffen-SS troops, who saw the Schwimmwagen as a promising alternative to the BMW R75 and Zündapp KS750 sidecar motorcycles previously used by the reconnaissance battalions of SS divisions. The new vehicle could carry four soldiers along with their gear, weapons and ammunition. Moreover, it had the not insignificant advantage of costing roughly half as much as the aforementioned BMW and Zündapp machines, and from the outset proved far more suitable than the sidecar motorcycles for the harsh off-road conditions ubiquitous in the Soviet Union, managing to traverse terrain where previously only tracked vehicles could pass.
Curiously, although it was used on all fronts—including North Africa—the Typ 166’s amphibious capability was not often employed. Its greatest virtue lay in its extraordinary off-road mobility, thanks to its light weight and flat underbody, combined with all-wheel drive, a ZF self-locking differential, and a generous ground clearance of 26 centimetres.
In a lesser-known detail, and despite the excellence of Ferdinand Porsche’s design, a considerable number of Schwimmwagens suffered from watertightness issues. The reason was simple, though not immediately obvious: the Typ 166s were largely built by French and Italian workers who would occasionally make a point of intentionally welding the steel panels poorly, thereby causing problems for the Germans when the vehicles were submerged.
Even so, the Schwimmwagen proved so capable that nearly all examples captured by the Allies were repainted olive drab, marked with white five-pointed stars, and put into service. By comparison, the Typ 166 weighed roughly half as much as its American counterpart, the Ford GPA, and was therefore significantly more agile.
Production of the Typ 166 ended in late 1944, with over 15,000 units built. After the war, the Schwimmwagen saw service in several countries with fire brigades and police forces, as well as being used by farmers and even duck hunters who greatly appreciated the vehicle’s capabilities for operating in lakes and marshland. Deprived of its propeller, one of the pre-series vehicles remained in the hands of the Porsche family for this very purpose—as a Jagdwagen (hunting car)—and was later used as a support vehicle in the testing of the first Porsche 356s. It is believed to have been left in Egypt after trials conducted there in 1949.
Today, around 180 examples of this extraordinary vehicle are thought to survive.