1:35 WW2 German Trippel SG.6 Sagged Wheel Set (For Das Werk)

An amphibian from Molsheim

The Trippel SG 6 amphibious car is among the lesser-known German vehicles of the Second World War. The designer Hanns Trippel had been working on floating cars since the mid-1930s, and from 1940 he was able to move production into the requisitioned works of the Bugatti firm in Molsheim in Alsace. About a thousand examples were built there, serving with the Wehrmacht and with Waffen-SS units.

The SG 6 differed from the more famous Schwimmwagen in size and in its whole conception. It was considerably larger and heavier, it was powered by a six-cylinder engine and on water it relied on a retractable marine propeller at the rear. The body formed a closed hull, so the vehicle looks more like a boat fitted with wheels than an off-road car with floating equipment added.

Sagged tires

The set swaps the standard wheels for a version with a deformed tire. The rubber is flattened where it meets the ground and the sidewall above it is slightly bulged, that is exactly how a loaded vehicle standing still looks. The difference is subtle, but the eye picks it up at once, because the model stops looking as if it were hovering above the base.

The shape of the hub matches the kit from the brand Das Werk. When fitting them it pays to watch that the flat areas of all the wheels point downward and lie in one plane. Otherwise the finished vehicle leans visibly on its base, and the mistake is then hard to put right. The size is 1:35.

Painting the wheels deserves a procedure of its own. The rubber on a real vehicle is not black but rather grayed, and earth is held in the grooves of the tread. A dry light pigment applied to the sidewalls will do more for conviction than the most accurate shape of a casting.