The Schwimmwagen was Germany's swimming car — an amphibious cousin of the Kübelwagen and the civilian Beetle, engineered by Porsche as the Type 166. Its sealed, boat-shaped hull floated, four-wheel drive clawed it up muddy banks, and a propeller hinged down off the back to drive it through the water on engine power, the crew steering with the front wheels like rudders. Roughly 15,000 were built — the most-produced amphibious car in history — and reconnaissance units prized them for slipping across the rivers and streams that laced ground like the Ardennes, scouting ahead of the tanks where bridges were blown or watched.

The three-piece set pairs the Schwimmwagen with two crew of the Panzer Lehr Division — the elite 130th, raised in 1943 from Germany's demonstration and training troops and thrown into every crisis on the Western Front. Gutted in Normandy and rebuilt for the Ardennes, it spearheaded the failed counterattack against the U.S. 9th Armored Division's bridgehead at Remagen before being ground down to surrender in April 1945. Set it beside its sister vehicle, the Kaiserbaracke Crossroads Schwimmwagen, and against the very division it fought there, the 9th Armored Sherman. A Schwimmwagen fording a stream makes a diorama with real motion.

W. Britain model 25204. 1/30 scale, matte-painted metal. Three-piece set — a Type 166 Schwimmwagen with two Panzer Lehr Division crew. Boxed.