Thread: The 1943 VW 166 Schwimmwagen

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I have never had anything to do with a swimwagon.
But some of the other german gear I have.
I have driven a Kettengrad which was in Australia for many years and studied it greatly when it was stored at home.
The Kettengrad is brittant and interesting.
One meter wide, Opel 4 cyl 1600c motor, 3 speed main box with a high and low range.
I never got to open it up fully , but it could do over 60kph without to much trouble.
The idea of a motor cycle type wheel arrangement on the front was for fine steering control.......the idea worked extremely well.
Turning the handle bars gradually brought in one of the track brakes.
Could seat one driver and 2 passengers and pull a trailer.
The German detail to small things like the track sprockets have rollers on the ends of the teeth and greasable track pins ect.
The Kettengrad was small enough and simple enough to be a very succesful piece of kit and could pull air craft or work well in snow or mud.
The larger half tracks had things like pneumatic gear change control of the gearboxes and excessive compication which caused them to be hard to make and expensive , with service problems in the field for some models.
A good example is the heavy side car combinations which cost more to produce than a jeep and carried less load.
A heavy motor bike side car combo in the german army often had side car wheel drive, diff lock and high low range.
A jeep will cross flooded rivers, where a side car combo will easily drown, travel down steep tracks without wanting to lift a rear wheel or scrap the front of the side car because the bikes front wheel is offset to one side ect.
The jeep was much better than the heavy bike and side car combos
The Kubble wagon was reasonably successful , because it was light and simple enough to be cheap and easy to produce.
The jeep is better in most respects except for suspension.
The swimwagon was better on water and land than the amphibious GPA jeep due the Jeep swimming conversion being heavy and carrying many extra items not found on a normal WW2 jeep like winch, bilge pumps, rudder etc.
The swimwagon chassis was better suited being a unitary construction, the front wheels were the rudder, no winch, no heavy transmission PTO.
The swimwagon was light ,simpler than the GPA jeep and worked.

Ouch- my disco looses to a VW WW2 type

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There was this genuine Schwimmwagen at the Corowa SwimIn this year - it was "for sale".

I did not buy it.

Sehr kluge Erfindung with the swingover water prop arrangement driving off the starter dog .

Originally Posted by NavyDiver

Ouch- my disco looses to a VW WW2 type

My german is limited, so, were they comparing the performance of a girl with little or no offroad experience, against a guy with some offroad experience and who went through the obstacles at about twice the speed?

Separate to the actual comparison above, it does show differences between tyres, and how much traction a rear drive, rear weight biased vehicle has, which is a fair amount of traction, as both rear wheels should typically stay on the ground, significantly negating the need for tc or a locker.

[Do these journo's make mythbusters look like nobel science prize candidates?]

Originally Posted by rammypluge

My german is limited, so, were they comparing the performance of a girl with little or no offroad experience, against a guy with some offroad experience and going through the obstacles at about twice the speed?

Separate to the actual comparison above, it does show differences between tyres, and how much traction a rear drive, rear weight biased vehicle has, which is a fair amount of traction, as both rear wheels should typically stay on the ground, significantly negating the need for tc or a locker.

Are you serious, ---> defend the Disco no matter what, I thought with all the electronics the Discovery 3, 4 & 5 was supposed to be able to perform better offload on Road Tyres than a Defender on Mud Tyres. Gender bias & off road driving experience aside.

I had a slightly modded VW Beetle with Winter treads before I had my first LR & I was super disappointed when the Landy with bar treads could NOT go nearly as good as the VW in some off road situations.

Originally Posted by rammypluge

My german is limited, so, were they comparing the performance of a girl with little or no offroad experience, against a guy with some offroad experience and going through the obstacles at about twice the speed?

Sabine Schmitz is one of the world's most talented race car drivers. The video is just a funny skit on how 60 year old German tech can beat current pommy tech without raising a sweat. Not to be taken seriously.

Top Gear's Sabine Schmitz: 'I scared Clarkson so much he wouldn't ride with me'

Sabine Schmitz - Wikipedia

Originally Posted by NavyDiver

Ouch- my disco looses to a VW WW2 type

Yeahh, na,, i reckon she should just learn how to drive.