The Schwimmwagen was a variant of the Volkswagen Beetle conversion put into mass production for the Wehrmacht in 1938 under the name Kübelwagen (literally translated as “bucket-car”). The variant was developed by Erwin Komenda, a car body designer employed by Ferdinand Porsche, in 1940, to provide an amphibious version. Komenda designed a new unitized body tub, since the flat floor pan chassis of the existing Kübelwagen vehicles was unsuited to smooth movement through water. Komenda patented his design for the swimming car at the German Patent office.
This new vehicle was a combination of the Volkswagen Type 86 four-wheel drive Kübelwagen with elements of the Volkswagen Type 87 command car, using the same air-cooled four-cylinder engine developing about 25 horsepower, and a manual transmission with four speeds, a transfer case and four-wheel-drive available only in first gear and reverse. These first series vehicles were called Type 128.
Dr. Porsche, in his 1976 memoir, , wrote: “By August (1941), the first prototype was ready for testing.
